And Because John McCain Refused To Adhere To Tradition, the Republican Party Never Won An Election Again

What is different about Hillary Clinton is the rampant misogyny still being directed at her, even now; the palpable disgust at her re-emergence; the demand that she get out of the way; the call for her to accept total responsibility for her loss without even acknowledging outside factors like the Russian disinformation campaign, the Comey letter, or GOP voter ID laws that cost her Wisconsin.

Gore, who managed to lose (okay, sort of lose) an election despite being the sitting vice president in an administration with 65 percent approval, blamed a hostile media, the Supreme Court’s absurd one-off decision to halt the proceedings in Florida, and the butterfly ballots. In 2007, Evgenia Peretz of Vanity Fair described him thusly: “He is the Bono of the environment, the Cassandra of Iraq, the star of an Oscar-winning film, and a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize. To the amusement of his kids, some people now actually consider him cool.” Gore reportedly got paid at least $175,000 per speech after he won the Nobel Peace Prize. He got divorced. And yet, in 2009, he had a 58-37 approval spread. This is the man whose campaign mistakes inflicted eight years of calamitous misrule on the country. If he ever apologized, I must have missed it.

Kerry never accepted one iota of responsibility for becoming the second consecutive Democrat to lose an election to George W. Bush. Years later, as detailed in this New Yorker profile, he clung to a ludicrous conspiracy theory and nurtured “the suspicion that in certain states, particularly Ohio, where the Electoral College count hinged, proxies for Bush had rigged many voting machines.” He blamed his campaign manager, Bob Shrum. He blamed the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth, that pack of lying opportunists who slimed Kerry’s war record. (Side note: Swift Boater Jerome Corsi now works for InfoWars and just got White House press credentials. Yay!). What he did not do was cop to any of his own mistakes. He went back to the Senate, where no one demanded that he give up his seat for a younger politician. The final poll taken about John Kerry while he was Obama’s secretary of state gave him a 10-point positive spread in his approval rating. Gandhi he is not, but it is safe to say that America has forgiven John Kerry for his sins.

In October 2009, just one year after his crushing loss to Obama, McCain was regarded favorably by 54 percent of respondents, remained a press darling, and never disavowed his choice to make the wilderness wastrel Sarah Palin his running mate, a decision that by one estimate cost him 2 million votes. Had the Great Recession not struck during the campaign, Palin may well have been remembered as the key to his election loss. McCain was within striking distance of Obama before an embarrassing series of interviews revealed Palin’s political ignorance and the September 2008 economic meltdown then put the race decisively out of reach. In an interview days after the election, McCain blamed the national political climate and stood by Palin. He failed to list a single mistake his campaign had made. He said he “slept like a baby.” Today he remains a curmudgeonly favorite despite not lifting a finger to hold President Trump accountable.

That’s quite a litany of failure there. And it barely scratches the surface.

Gore – picked Joementum who had the worst VP debate of all time, didn’t use Clinton at all, and then conceded before he understood he had won the popular vote.

Kerry – gives his acceptance speech in a rush just about out of prime time and then sits silently for 6 weeks while he gets swift boated. Republicans are certainly evil, but then you have to plan for evil. And Edwards turned out to be a real bargain although it wasn’t a problem during the campaign. But anyone who hires Shrum and then complains, meh.

Looking back now, you can see why the Democrats have no one under 70 ready to go in 2020. Lieberman, Edwards, and Biden were all dead ends. They couldn’t all be stars, but none of them are.

daves09

Get a grip.
VP’s are sometimes candidates but seldom winners.
Gillibrand
Harris
Warren
Booker
Gavin Newsom if he’s elected gov. of Ca.
Anyone of those are superior to anyone the repubs ran in 2016.

Manju

Good list…but somehow I feel that the only way we can exorcise Trump is to run a Charlie Sheen / Lorena Bobbitt ticket.

The fur rat I bought in Ikea would have been better too. But yes. Too much experience is a handicap. Harris may have too little. The Dems could have run the fur rat in California and still won. But she’s st least as cute. This unfortunately matters, a lot.

I wanted Gillibrand to run in 2016, but now, I dread the labeling of her as Hillary Junior the moment she announces. You know it’s going to happen. She’s a woman, she’s from New York, she looks a little bit like a young Hillary Clinton, she had sort of a centrist image in the past. Her story is completely different in detail, but these things don’t matter.

Joe_JP

Gillibrand took over Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat & looks up to her as a mentor. So, for those who want to (on both sides), the connection is rather easy to make. The core difference really is that Clinton had more foreign policy cred though Gillibrand’s efforts to address abuse in the military etc. is one thing she’s known for beyond her own state.

Matt McIrvin

…I general, I kind of think we’re already doomed in 2020 because the Democrats are not going to nominate Bernie Sanders, and absolutely the only candidate who will not be smeared as a sellout by the Sanders dead-enders is Bernie Sanders (and I’m not 100% sure about him). I’m seeing Sanders 2020 agitation already.

efgoldman

I’m seeing Sanders 2020 agitation already.

The agitators are going to be very disappointed. I doubt he’s running again.
– Too old
– Too one note
– Too shouty
– Will need to release tax returns
– Mrs Bernie’s finances are under investigation.

If he runs as a Democrat, he’ll get crushed in the primaries. Dem voters are no longer Bernie-curious.
If he runs as an independent, he’ll be a Stein-type spoiler at best.

mongolia

Looking back now, you can see why the Democrats have no one under 70 ready to go in 2020. Lieberman, Edwards, and Biden were all dead ends. They couldn’t all be stars, but none of them are.

this is extremely melodramatic.

2004 was a tough year in general based on the fundamentals, and kerry iirc slightly overperformed those models

2008 had 2 impressive candidates kick one of the “dead ends” you describe to the curb (whereas one wasn’t even on the curb to begin with), and the winner ended up getting 2 terms with a positive approval rating at the end.

2016 had the candidate who barely lost to the impressive 2-termer from 2008, who was popular among the parties base voters and especially among elected officials – i.e. the people who work with her – which made many people unwilling to challenge her, for reasons that appeared to be that they would like her as president. ran a reasonably competent campaign that required the head of the fbi to outrageously break protocol to imply said candidate was a criminal and collusion of the opposing party with russia to pull an inside straight while losing by 2% of the vote.

for 2020 – there is no “popular” candidate from the previous race. for all his backing, sanders wasn’t particularly close, so there’s a lot of air for younger dems to come in and make a name for themselves. the key thing is, that unlike in 2016, there won’t be an obvious candidate that has much of the party unified behind them. if we look back to 2016 the fact that the 3 main candidates were late-60’s to mid-70’s seems pretty obvious – VP to popular president, person who gave popular president their toughest win, and a protest candidate – so i’m not sure if this is a bench issue or just that the people in those specific roles were older, and as far as 2020 is concerned 2 of those roles will not exist while the 3rd will have more competition

Derelict

Democrats do not have a bench of younger folks coming up because the party has worked very, very hard to prevent such a thing. “Where did all the money go?” is a question that Wasserman-Schultz needs to be asked, because it sure didn’t go to state or local candidates.

This is why you have mostly antiques at the national level.

humanoid.panda

That’s not true: while the Congressional leaders are old (as they should be- that’s not a position in which youth and vigor an enormous upsides- see Paul P90X Ryan), the next nominee will almost certainly be a senator in their mid 50s.*** The real weakness in the party comes in the gubernatorial wing: there is not a single Democratic governor who is a plausible nominee. That weakness of course stems from the waves of 2010 and 2014, and I think blaming them on DWS is, to put it mildly, nonsense.

*** My working assumption is that neither Biden nor Warren run.

efgoldman

I think blaming them on DWS is, to put it mildly, nonsense.

Especially because it’s not the DNC’s job.

kped

She’s a two-fer (Jew and woman), so she gets blamed for basically everything. Must be fun for her! (I don’t like her personally, more right wing then I prefer, but the vitriol directed at her is just utterly ridiculous, and the power people imagine she had is just nonsense.)

tsam

I know I’m always suspicious of hyphenated names. They’re almost as bad as guys with two first names.

Matt McIrvin

People who I regard as politically sensible in every other way still insist that the DNC rigged the 2016 primaries. Including primaries run by Republican state governments.

Manny Kant

Dem governors: I guess Malloy might be a plausible nominee? Inslee?

so-in-so

I like Malloy, but he had a tough run against a Romneyesqe GOP opponent in our pretty blue state. Which state is dogged with financial issues (not of Malloy’s making, but that won’t matter a bit). I think he would be a mistake, even if he is interested.

Derelict

You might want to take that up with Hillary, since she characterized the party as broke, dysfunctional, and in need of salvage at the time she won the nomination.

One of the reasons there are no Democratic governors who can be plausible nominees is because DWS refused to fund state-level campaigns unless the candidate was a 100% lock to win.

Republicans routinely fund races at all levels from dog catcher on up, and the RNC makes sure money is available in all these races. The DNC? I’m waiting for someone to explain just what the DNC does, since funding local races, cultivating candidates, spreading the Democratic message, and defeating Republicans seems to be outside its area of responsibility.

humanoid.panda

The fact that Republicans are willing to spend money on any race, anywhere would come as great news to the republicans of Philadelphia..

Aexia

Especially since DWS wasn’t chair of the DNC in 2010.

But yeah, it turns out mid-terms are typically driven by a reaction to the party in the Presidency.

Daglock

From my vantage point, echoing Derelict,the DNC has worked very hard to keep the state and local party organizations ineffectual and powerless. We are now suffering the consequences. DWS is the proxy target for general dissatisfaction of the rank and file with the DNC.

Aexia

From my experience, state and local parties have never needed any help being ineffectual and powerless. There’s a reason campaigns (of any level) treat them as obstacles to be worked around.

humanoid.panda

2016 had the candidate who barely lost to the impressive 2-termer from 2008, who was popular among the parties base voters and especially among elected officials – i.e. the people who work with her – which made many people unwilling to challenge her, for reasons that appeared to be that they would like her as preside

Most importantly, when all the major decisions about runnning/endorsing were made, HRC had 60% favorability with 100% name recognition. she was basically an incumbent in all but name, with support both from her own and Obama’s networks. Why would anyone want to run into that woodchipper?

Brien Jackson

The hell are you talking about? You can’t argue with the amazing benefit running in 2016 was for Martin O’Malley’s political career!

efgoldman

You can’t argue with the amazing benefit running in 2016 was for Martin O’Malley’s political career!

Well we certainly do need a new Harold Stassen.

N__B

Particularly one with an intimate connection to both the drug underworld and the Lannisters.

Manny Kant

He probably could have had the Senate seat, too, if he’d wanted it. Terrible decision.

njorl

I always assumed O’Malley was running for vice-president. Even so, he didn’t do well.

And speaking of vice-presidents, people sell Tim Kaine short. People claim he’s boring, but so what. He’s won tough elections repeatedly against dirty tactics to get where he is. He’s done it running to the left of his state’s Democratic party in a state that had been more Republican than Democrat. He’s a pleasant, unassuming, asskicking SOB.

herewego12ithink

No one should blame her for running, nor blame others for not running against her.

But there was an alternative and the primary voters were aware that the majority of the general electorate disliked her – and had for at least 12 consecutive polls – when they pulled that lever.

I mean, both parties can keep relying on “but they’ll nominate someone unpopular too so let’s roll the dice” but I don’t think this is a solid strategy. But if I’m wrong, I think Weiner will be out of jail by then, and it the requirement is “not too old” then why not, amiright?

iphoneaimai

The majority of the general electorate did not dislike her–but the republicans certainly did. Why, they had the temerity to hate the fucking guts of Obama! So obviously that indicated that there were a lot of democrats out there with high profiles and long service in government and name recognition that Republican and swing voters would easily transfer their allegiance to and decide to vote for. Clinton ran an explicitly pro-Obama coalition race and she handily won much of the Obama coalition. The part she didn’t get was the stone racists who had had enough of giving the black guy a chance to clean up Bush’s mess and who were voting for a candidate they loved. I don’t know why people think that *any* democrat could have out white racisted/out demagogued Trump. His voters wanted what he was selling and they didn’t want what the democrats were offering. Any democrat.

herewego12ithink

The majority of the general electorate did not dislike her–but the republicans certainly did.

You are factually incorrect.

She was upside down in general electorate likability for a dozen consecutive polls before the first primary vote was cast. I mean, this isn’t even arguable.

I wish I could say your argument that racists voted for Obama but took out their racism on Clinton was novel…but instead I will have to settle on saying it’s not intelligent (I’m trying to be nice here.)

Are the black people in Detroit who stayed home the racists you’re talking about? You’re really arguing that all the people in Erie who switched are racists who voted for Obama but their racism caused them to vote against Clinton? Again, really?

Let me help you out: the racists voted against obama. And kerry. And gore. And clinton twice before that.

The story of the election is that fifth to quarter of the electorate that hated both candidates, that we assumed Clinton couldn’t lose more than 2:1, but instead lost like 6:1 or 7:1. That’s the ballgame. It was a novel situation (find another presidential race where both nominees were upside down in approval) – we played with fire, and we got burned.

Fun fact: Obama and Clinton both started primary voting and ended the general election at their same respective general electorate approval levels. NOTHING changed anyone’s mind from the first to the last day. Nothing.

Manny Kant

Many of the people in Erie who switched are racists who voted for Obama in order to end being accused of being racist, and then because they didn’t like Romney (and also because they were Democrats), but their racism caused them to be really into Trump.

The influence of racism on the election was that Trump was explicitly telling people it’s okay to be racist, which had appeal to the white working class beyond that of Romney’s joyless embrace of the Paul Ryan budget.

Just_Dropping_By

Many of the people in Erie who switched are racists who voted for Obama in order to end being accused of being racist

So you’re saying the Fox News talking heads are correct that Obama won because people wanted to vote for “the cool black guy”?!?

Manny Kant

I think that Obama’s race didn’t work against him as much as it might have in 2008 because of structural conditions, because of his talents as a candidate, and, yes, because some people wanted to prove (to themselves?) they weren’t racist by voting for the black guy.

A lot of those people were Republicans who moved back to Romney in 2012. The ones who were Democrats stuck by Obama because Romney is like a caricature of the kind of Republican people like that don’t like.

Between 2012 and 2016, I think BLM, in particular, caused a lot of these people to become much more aware that electing Obama president hadn’t ended what they had most wanted it to – people accusing white people and American society in general of being racist. Trump was antidote to that, and had a special appeal to people like that.

Justin Runia

The Black people in Detroit didn’t ‘stay home’; their ballots were thrown out because the optical readers couldn’t parse them, or they were prevented from voting by Interstate Crosscheck.

This idea that Democratic victory is entirely dependent on picking the “perfect” candidate is childish and self-defeating, voter behavior in the 2010 election had at least as much to do with why we lost in 2016 as anything else. The 2010 election saw a number of statehouses flip or remain under Republican control, allowing them to re-district and fortify their position for the next decade, in addition to passing numerous types of voter disenfranchisement legislation that contributed to the razor-thin margins in Wisconsin and Michigan. The 2010 election also ceded the House to Republicans, which when combined with the procedural blockade in the Senate, effectively stopped the Democratic party from enacting any substantive changes for six years prior to the election.

Focusing of failures by the ‘elites’ is certainly satisfying, on a certain level, but the fact is, every four years during mid-term elections, turnout drops by a third, allowing an older, more conservative, more nostalgic electorate to pick a large majority of the government. This matters. Focusing all of our attention on the one particular seat, as if the person sitting there had superhuman powers of persuasion (perhaps granted by a will-power fueled ring) is dooming us to fail regularly. In fact, given the long-standing structural and habitual factors within the US electorate, it’s frankly surprising Democrats take the presidency at all…

so-in-so

“allowing an older, more conservative, more nostalgic electorate”

Nicest way of saying “racist, misogynist” I’ve seen in a while. I’m often “nostalgic” for some things, even some things that predate my awareness, but I also know they were part and parcel of a lot of bad shit for a lot of people. I don’t really want to go back there, even if I selectively like the fantasy bits.

humanoid.panda

“The majority of the general electorate did not dislike her–but the republicans certainly did.”

That’s simply not true. We can argue about whether this was fair or not (glaringly unfair in my book), but you can’t retconn unconvenient facts out of existence.

Manny Kant

She also wasn’t able to pull Obama’s numbers with African-Americans. Look at the Decision Desk HQ precinct by precinct national map and check out the swing in the big urban African-American precincts (and rural ones in the south, though those didn’t really make a difference). She did significantly worse than Obama. Probably made the difference in Michigan, at least. Not sure about Wisconsin, but would have closed the gap substantially in PA if she’d gotten Obama’s margin out of Philly.

tobie

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Bernie did his part ginning up the Clinton-hate on the left. Russia’s first experiment with planting fake news stories began with Facebook pages devoted to him.

As they say, people in covfefe houses shouldn’t throw covfefe.

herewego12ithink

You’re an idiot. Bernie Sanders, the person, did no such thing.

humanoid.panda

As a person, he didn’t. But he let his campaign play footsie with conspiracy theorizing, and definitely did not loudly denounce it.

herewego12ithink

Oh boy. That’s a warm bucket of spit right there.

so-in-so

Actually, I’m pretty sure he called HRC both corrupt and unqualified in at least one speech.

Manny Kant

Hmm…the last few months of Bernie’s campaign were not particularly edifying in that respect.

WinningerR

Except, of course, in the latter stages of the campaign when Bernie (the person) and his surrogates were routinely claiming that he was being victimized by a shadowy conspiracy between the DNC and the Clinton campaign, even going so far as to imply that Clinton’s campaign dispatched thugs to shoot up one of his offices. Needless to say, all of that gave plenty of “bi-partisan air cover” to the narrative that was being peddled by the right wing propaganda machine. Once you sell a story like that to your followers, you’re never going to pull them all back, and no, it was definitely not primary politics as usual.

Aexia

The Sanders campaign routinely trafficked in conspiracy theories. It’s no accident that the Seth Rich stuff was initially ginned up by Sanders supporters.

mongolia

bernie did some during the primary, but not particularly different compared to the typical primary. think it’s more accurate to say that his disorganized campaign led itself to promoting clowns (nina turner, cornel west, susan sarandon, etc.) who used the bernie campaign to promote their anti-democrat views, and essentially try to “discredit” dems when we should have looked unified, and ideally none of those disruptive forces would have been aligned with the dems anyways.

in short – bernie’s campaign not doing vetting was part of the problem, bernie’s inability to quickly concede in june was part of the problem, but bernie himself wasn’t much of a problem and he was great as far as being willing to campaign and be a surrogate from september to election day.

humanoid.panda

“in short – bernie’s campaign not doing vetting was part of the problem, bernie’s inability to quickly concede in june was part of the problem, but bernie himself wasn’t much of a problem and he was great as far as being willing to campaign and be a surrogate from september to election day.

”

I agree with most of this, but in the end: Bernie was the boss, and the buck should have stopped with him.

ForkyMcSpoon

Eh, agree with panda but also from what I saw, Bernie never tried to vouch for Clinton herself. He talked about the platform, but the common refrain I heard was that she was never going to do any of it. That’s what she needed help with (particularly after the attacks during the primaries).

There was nothing he could say about her record that he liked? No issue?

cleek

the majority of the general electorate disliked her

is that why the majority of the general electorate voted for her?

PeteW

In fairness 3/4 of the electorate didn’t vote for her. (or Trump).

humanoid.panda

“is that why the majority of the general electorate voted for her?
”

A plurality, not majority. Seriously guys: just because a lot of hacks are attacking Hillary, you can’t just retcon the election.

libarbarian

chi khen be?

msdc

ran a reasonably competent campaign that required the head of the fbi to outrageously break protocol to imply said candidate was a criminal and collusion of the opposing party with russia

I would actually go beyond that and say Clinton ran a highly disciplined campaign. The convention was impeccably managed (despite the best efforts of the Bernie-or-Busters), she won all three debates, and in both cases was able to send Trump into self-destructive Twitter wars against sympathetic ordinary Americans. Her VP pick was solid and her campaign was mercifully free of the 2008 drama. She was a better candidate in every way, and the best in either field.

The most serious criticism I think you can make of Clinton is that she had the theory of the case wrong – she ran on making Trump toxic to the American people when the American people, at least on the right end of the spectrum (and increasingly on the fringe left) have shown they’re just fine with toxic. A campaign based more on alienating Trump from working-class voters, a la what Obama did to Romney in 2012, might have won the day.

But even there, it’s hard to fault Clinton for choosing the strategy she did because it was working right up until October 28. Every poll was reinforcing her decisions. It really does come down to Comey and Putin.

humanoid.panda

This is spot on. To the extent anything is “Hillary’s fault” it’s decisions she made before she started running: the money grabs and failure to prep a strategy on the email thing (not this is not me: emails from the period show that both Podesta and Tanden, the best people in her circle were very angry about her initial handling of the issue). Once the campaign started, she ran it as close to mistake-free as possible.

mongolia

this is correct, along with things out of her control like russians hacking the dnc, dccc, podesta, and the rnc. the crazy part is that the speeches were both fairly easy to counter – “they gave me a quarter million for a 20 minute speech – why should i say no? look at my record to see if i’m beholden to them”, and the reason they were out in the open is because of financial disclosure that she did that neither of her asshole opponents did – and they had the temerity to use this as an issue and brush off not disclosing their financials. as for the emails – seems that the reason was pretty computer illiterate, and that if she had a state email she’d have to carry two phones which would have been annoying. combine those with the fact that she literally asked a previous SoS what he did, and he used an aol email and describe her how to circumvent foia in a way she specifically did not do. think both of these explanations are both (a) mostly true and (b) fairly innocuous.

in any case, it doesn’t matter though, the “hillary is a c***” brigade would have found something else to pillory her for, so i can see why she was reticent to explain things fully – see all the “she’s running again” shit from media assclowns as to the reason why hillary is so unnecessarily guarded.

humanoid.panda

I have no doubt that the CDS campaign would have dregged something, but not anything they dreg has valence: Benghazi didn’t hurt her one bit. In the end, what hurt her is that she had no common sense aide, in charge of basically reminding her that everything she is doing should be geared towards winning election, and everything else: money, comfort, was secondary.

mongolia

totally agree re: speeches – those were quite dumb, cuz she had to have known she was running again, but in ’09, while i obviously can’t read her mind, she probably had resigned herself to knowing she was never running for office again, and wanted to just do the best SoS job she could, and maybe figured this was the best way? i agree her aides should have known better and done everything to fit protocol better, but the emails stuff is more defensible imo than the fairly incomprehensible optics of the speeches

eclare

+1

herewego13

Uh, -1.

“But even there, it’s hard to fault Clinton for choosing the strategy she did because it was working right up until October 28.”

Yeah, that’s not true either. Someone of us were warning – even right here on this very blog – that this thing was a coin flip for a lonnnng time, if you were paying attention to the polling. Regardless if you believed those people or not.

Seems loomis is awake. You’ll have to do your own google search for site:lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com and “progressiveliberal” and you can see where I was castigated for pointing out that she was damn close to losing this thing and needed to change strategies – well before she lost.

Funny I’ve seen none of those commentors admit they know nothing of which they opine.

Have a good day all.

sibusisodan

“I was castigated for pointing out that she was damn close to losing this thing and needed to change strategies ”

You offered no evidence for this and screamed like a toddler that we should all just listen to you. You did not work through any of the rebuttals offered to you.

Other commenters, notably Karen24, who were pessimistic ahead of time but expressed themselves more politely and acknowledged the difference between the evidence available and their own intuitions, were neither mocked, shunned, nor banned.

msdc

Strangely, the troll who keeps getting banned and resurfacing with new nyms seems to have a credibility problem.

CP

But even there, it’s hard to fault Clinton for choosing the strategy she did because it was working right up until October 28. Every poll was reinforcing her decisions. It really does come down to Comey and Putin.

Yeah, and considering that something like this had already happened – the first time being the Supreme Court in 2000 – I’m not sure what the hell Democrats can do to counter this in the future.

We’re not Turkey or Iran. Our elections aren’t supposed to have generals or clerics who step in and rectify the electoral system when they feel that it’s not leading to the right candidate. But with the Supreme Court in 2000 and the FBI in 2016, it’s increasingly how certain people in unelected offices are behaving, and the public and media largely accepts it uncritically.

so-in-so

At least in 2000 they waited until after the election to steal it.

CP

True, but it’s even more egregious in another way because they directly decided the election. As egregious as Comey’s decision was, the ultimate decision there still rested on the voters and the electoral college. Nothing he did could’ve stopped the voters if enough of them had seen through his bullshit.

Pat

Which, in combination with the Russian disinformation campaign and Republican efforts to restrict the vote, was damned hard for them to do.

so-in-so

Also, the NYTs. If the MSM had seen through the Comey nonsense and reported it as such, the voters would have had an easier time (maybe).

EthanS

Iran called and they still want credit for helping the GOP torpedo Carter’s pre-election hostage negotiations.

Who was the last republican elected Pres without a serious ratfucking? (Not GHWB? I want 1980 to estop him) Nixon!?!?!? JFC that’s some irony.

JMP

Nixon secretly convinced the South Vietnamese government to reject the peace treaty LBJ was trying to negotiate between them and North Vietnam.

rm

Nixon did dirty tricks in the 1972 Dem primaries. I don’t know about ’68, but those got really fucked up by many factors, including assassination and Vietnam, which probably outweighed the influence of any ratfucking by 1000x.

Edit: JMP, oh yeah, that.

How many millions of deaths have occurred as direct results of Republicans stealing/hacking American elections?

CP

If the Iran thing really happened (to the best of my knowledge it’s never been confirmed the way Nixon’s shenanigans in South Vietnam were), then the answer is “Eisenhower.” 1952.

(That’s assuming we’re not counting reelections – or things like Bush coming into office on Reagan’s coattails, which was basically the same thing).

xq

But even there, it’s hard to fault Clinton for choosing the strategy she did because it was working right up until October 28.

She was doing better in the polls the day before the election than at the beginning of October. If Comey really did decide the election, he did so by cancelling out the effect of the Access Hollywood tape.

I don’t think campaign strategy matters much at all, but the narrative that Clinton was doing fine the whole election until Comey is just not consistent with the polling data. There were many earlier signs of trouble.

Scott Lemieux

Right. I disagree with xq about the impact of the Comey letter, but as Silver said the letter swung the election because it was always much less certain than people thought. And Clinton’s resource allocation was suboptimal, not focused enough on tipping point states (although because of the loss of Pennsylvania it almost certainly didn’t matter.)

humanoid.panda

A million takes why HRC lost PA,MI,WI, and not a single Florida take..

mongolia

don’t the results in PA/WI/MI sort of justify the resource allocation though? WI and MI are more D than PA, so if you can shift PA by 1-2% and the national climate allows you to win WI/MI by 2-3% then you get all 3. problem seems to be an across the board drop (attributable to comey imo) that likely was the reason we had a 2-5% drop in all sorts of places, so that a reasonable resource allocation strategy in hopes of increasing the vote in a number of places, while hopefully also winning tough senate seats.

point being, how much of this was driven by the fact that WI and MI never looked close until late october, and that they concluded the only world they lose WI and MI also means they lose PA?

xq

There are maps where Clinton loses PA but WI/MI give her the win.

msdc

Only if she also won somewhere else like FL or NC. MI and WI alone only get her to 258.

In other words, PA was decisive and the “should have spent more time in” hot takes fall apart.

mongolia

there are, but my understanding is that based on the similarities of the demos in those states, that if we had received 1% more in WI, a similar 1%ish increase would also be seen in MI/PA. obviously there are other maps, though we did worse in NC/FL despite huge investments in those areas. and aside from MI/WI/FL and MI/WI/NC, don’t recall another particularly realistic non-PA map

xq

Only if she also won somewhere else like FL or NC. MI and WI alone only get her to 258.

Yes, everyone in this conversation knows this. The point is that it did make sense to try to win MI and WI.

The value in talking about this is not to blame Clinton, but Democrats really should do better next time.

xq

mongolia: PA was actually slightly closer than WI. There’s a universe where Clinton wins PA and MI, but barely loses WI, which still gives Trump the win by two electoral votes (though that would have been interesting with the faithless electors….)

msdc

The point is that it did make sense to try to win MI and WI.

Of course it did – there were and are few credible winning maps that don’t include them. The same holds true for PA, which is why talking about bankshot maps in which she loses one rust belt state, wins two other demographically similar ones (plus A State To Be Named Later) and takes the White House hold little value for discussion going forward.

But, to reiterate the obvious at the expense of seeing it ignored once again, the public polling suggests Clinton was winning WI and MI handily until the Comey letter dropped. How many resources should she have pulled away from other swing states with viable senate races to contest two states that weren’t in danger until Oct. 29?

xq

the public polling suggests Clinton was winning WI and MI handily until the Comey letter dropped.

This is not very relevant to optimal strategy. The Silver article I posted goes over this. You should campaign in tipping point states, not close states. MI and WI were both clear tipping point states before Comey.

other swing states with viable senate races

1. It’s unclear that Clinton campaigning in those states would help the senate races.
2. Sacrificing presidential win probability to help senate races is almost never a good idea because of the extremely high stakes of US presidential elections. Not winning the Senate is much less of a big deal than Trump taking the presidency, especially since Dems wouldn’t have taken the House anyways.

ForkyMcSpoon

WI/MI takes have to also take into account that Trump wasn’t spending much money in either state.

Clinton pouring resources in would’ve led Trump to do the same. His campaign was fairly incompetent, but not completely so. The Clinton campaign didn’t think the states were completely safe, part of their decision-making was based on how it would affect Trump’s campaign. To the extent that her investment was suboptimal by not putting enough in WI/MI, Trump’s campaign was just about as suboptimal in the same way. (On the other hand, there may have been Russian online ad spending in those states, so the amount spent there for Trump was higher than we thought.)

We can posit that perhaps she would’ve won them if she had put in significant resources uncontested. It is less obvious whether Clinton would’ve won WI/MI in the event that both campaigns invested heavily.

msdc

If the point is that the fundamentals of the election were always closer than the media coverage suggested, then I agree. But Clinton’s resource allocation was only suboptimal in the sense that she had to switch from playing an aggressive offense to a prevent defense in the last week. And she had to switch because…

Manju

Yeah, he should have hired Gen. Flynn, Jared, Ivanka, and Gary Cohen instead.

Manju

I don’t know why I said this…other than to wonder why Dems who become Republicans are still the worst people in the world.

Chetsky

My understanding (based on readings here from time-to-time) is that at the time, the Rs wouldn’t have approved anybody other than an R. Do you have realistic suggestions for who might have gotten approved? It’d be nice if they were names that were floated back then.

If I’m wrong, and he could have gotten a Dem thru, I’d be happy to be corrected.

Chetsky

Urk. Not obv, but I was referring to Comey.

humanoid.panda

My understanding (based on readings here from time-to-time) is that at the time, the Rs wouldn’t have approved anybody other than an R. Do you have realistic suggestions for who might have gotten approved? It’d be nice if they were names that were floated back then.

Back then, Dems had the Senate majority, and they ended up nuking the filibuster.

Chetsky

Comey was Sept 21; nuclear option was Nov 21. So at the time of Comey’s appointment, the Rs did have the filibuster. And sure, we shoulda nuked it much earlier. But that seems like an unrealistic answer.

humanoid.panda

So, let’s say Republicans filibuster FBI nominee on Sep. 21. Does the republic die if a new one is brought to the floor on Nov. 22?

Chetsky

I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere with this line of discussion — wikipedia tells me that Lisa Monaco (Obama appointee to DOJ) was the other candidate. But no information on the politics around the appointment at the time. And that’s really what I’d like to understand.

In short: sure the Dems coulda played harder ball. But at -that- point, they weren’t doing that, were they? I think expecting 2013-era Dems to be like 2017 Dems (except Feinstein ) is a sort of retconning.

humanoid.panda

My point being that there was no pressure to nominate Comey or any other republican to the position – it was just generally assumed for some reason that FBI chairs should be either republican or independent.

Q.E.Dumbass

TThat said, Comey had enough of a history with the Clintons (as well as various other shortcomings) that marked him as a terrible choice even there.

Scott Lemieux

Right. It’s not just that he was a Republican — he was a former Whitewater snipe hunter. That should have been a massive red flag.

Obviously, Obama could not have known exactly how this would blow up, but Comey was a bad choice. (And, in general, Obama was a good president but not a very effective leader of the party.)

Joe_JP

Was there a post here at the time of his nomination and confirmation concerning Comey?

Q.E.Dumbass

Yes — the title is “Comey: A Horrible Choice,” although the post doesn’t mention Clinton at all, focusing instead on the other reasons appointing Comey was a stupid idea (while name-dropping “Republican daddies” to boot).

Scott Lemieux

I think this is also at least the third time this information has been provided to Joe, and it won’t be the last request.

Q.E.Dumbass

Isn’t it usually liberal who writes the borderline-trolling posts pretending no one here criticized the choice at the time?

Joe_JP

Thanks.

I looked into the matter before & as I noted previously, I could not find anything [Wikipedia said he was nominated in June]. I scrolled down post after post. But, it turns out that end of the term SCOTUS opinions delayed things to the next month. Did not keep on looking into July.

As you said, “doesn’t mention Clinton.” That is a major point of the criticism NOW from many people here. They weren’t upset particularly that his record on civil liberties was bad. The “Republican daddies” problem was flagged. But, again in context, not because they would be partisan against someone running for President, particularly Clinton.

I did not “pretend” anything. I said I didn’t recall. Sorry if I don’t recall one post among many (compare various other issues). I left open that he might have said something. And, no Scott, I won’t ask again. Sorry I missed any past citation of the post, apparently ONE post in July, after you focused on other matters. He was confirmed later on.

Q.E.Dumbass

Sorry, the accusation wasn’t intended to be directed at you – in fact, I thought this was only the first or second time you asked – but toward the other guy who’s asked this question at least as many times as ProgressiveLiberal’s gotten banned (which hasn’t stopped even after contrary evidence has been offered, multiple times). For what it’s worth, Scott did about four anti-Republican Daddy posts at the end of October, reexamining the appointment from the Clinton angle.

herewego12ithink

Ok, then fuck them? Leave it empty. “We will only approve Hitler.” Are you nominating Hitler?

Our party got in this situation by being spineless and it seems that is still the reflexive response.

brad

Ain’t your party, fuckboy. If you want someone to listen, go to a strip club and buy a lap dance.

Not to mention that when I asked for suggestions about going to Munich last year, he actually suggested his favorite strip club.

brad

I remember that well, along with his haughty dismissal of all of us sexually repressed vanilla folk (heh) who question his moral authority. After all, he’s vegan, too. And that he cares more about cuddly animals than the women grinding on his lap is a feature, not a bug, of course.

Morse Code for J

The only apology I want is that none are ever again appointed for the sake of a bipartisan comity that will not return in the foreseeable future.

herewego12ithink

It is ridiculous that people keep blaming Clinton but no one says shit about Obama. That guy fucked a few million people with a few key stupid decisions, yet he gets a pass because he did a lot of good.

Why isn’t he being forced to apologize and accept responsibility? No one even has the balls to ask him.

iphoneaimai

Because asking for apologies for actions taken in office is incredibly stupid and beside the point?

herewego12ithink

So you don’t think W should apologize for the Iraq war or admit in a speech/interview that it was a mistake? He should just keep on keeping on?

I prefer my leaders, past or present, admit when they make a mistake, and apologize. This is the standard I hold all adults to.

iphoneaimai

Bullshit. Apologies are meaningless unless they are made to the persons offended and ar a material reparation of the hurt caused. W can’t apologize of rthe Iraq war because he can’t make up for it and Obama can’t apologize for something Comey did years after tea appointment that no one could have foreseen as a consequence of that appointment. You are irreparably stupid for harping on this weird, niche, point.

humanoid.panda

I’m not sure I get the drift here: W should apologize for the Iraq war, because it was a moral disaster and a strategic blunder, which he directly decided on. Obama should not apologize for nominating Comey, because as you point out, Comey’s decisions came downstream from Obama’s original decision. But Obama probably should apologize, or at least account for, his actions on Lybia.

iphoneaimai

I should rephrase and then I have to run to class. I think that politicians should apologize for their mistakes and crimes in office but I don’t think its very meaningful unless its over world historic importance. So W apologizing and admitting that he lied to get us into an unnecessary war and destroyed Iraq would have quite a bit of meaning to the Iraqis and perhaps to the US electorate but it wouldn’t have any effect on my opinion of W or the Republican party.

Obama should apologize to Clinton (and probably has) for putting Comey in as FBI head but the reasons to do so at the time were quite reasonable and no one could have foreseen how Comey would backstab the democratic party and the entire country six years later. Apologizing is a formal act that I don’t think works for this situation–at least not apologizing to the country as a whole. Although I would enjoy Obama cautioning democrats in the future not to attempt to be conciliating with the republicans at all once we get into power and using the many examples of bad faith/bad action by all republicans after Obama got in as proof.

I just see this continued hectoring/lecturing by this poster as indescribably stupid and the product of the same bernie bro/authoritarian style of domination politics in which fringe actors/basement dwellers/trolls/MRAs/PUAs demand the right to set the terms for everyone else’s engagement and demand acts that they see as submissive from democratic political figures–always in the guise of something something ethical standards. Totally beside the point. ITs just another form of ranking and jockeying for position. Its free floating aggression masquerading as political thought.

Rob in CT

I just see this continued hectoring/lecturing by this poster as indescribably stupid and the product of the same bernie bro/authoritarian style of domination politics in which fringe actors/basement dwellers/trolls/MRAs/PUAs demand the right to set the terms for everyone else’s engagement and demand acts that they see as submissive from democratic political figures–always in the guise of something something ethical standards. Totally beside the point. ITs just another form of ranking and jockeying for position. Its free floating aggression masquerading as political thought.

Thanks for articulating this, because it’s how I feel about it too.

Origami Isopod

Thanks for articulating this, because it’s how I feel about it too.

Same.

herewego13

That sure is a lot of words. You sure didn’t say much.

I’m just pointing out errors in other’s thinking. I ain’t dominating anyone on the internet.

What you are is a fucking troll who is not welcomed here. Go away sexist asshole.

Rob in CT

Obama sort of did that in a long interview a couple of years ago. He could do more, but he acknowledged that the Libya intervention didn’t turn out well (not really the same as full-on apologizing, because I think he still thinks there simply was no good option, so he picked a shitty one instead of another shitty one).

Regarding the Comey thing… acknowledging the error would be nice I guess (or even better, walk us through his reasoning at the time!), but I do think it’s weird to compare Bush/Iraq to Obama/Comey.

so-in-so

Yes, it’s crazy to act like MYOB would have produced a “good” result, or even a determined result. The Europeans may have responded to Kaddafi butchering Benghazi with heavy artillery by their own intervention, or the people may have overthrown him anyway (or he may have decided to start supporting terrorists again).

humanoid.panda

Right. My point was very limited: Aimai said that W can’t apologize for Iraq, and Obama can’t and shouldn’t apologize with Comey. I agreed on the latter point, but thought her Iraq point was weird, because a bungled war is exactly the sort of thing politicians should apologize for.

Rob in CT

So-in-so,

Well, I was against the Libya intervention, and I think staying out might’ve been marginally better. But we’ll never know.

HP: agreed on politicians taking responsibility for massive blunders resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths (with more yet to come).

so-in-so

Rob in CT – after Rwanda and Srebrenica it sure wasn’t a call I’d want to make.

herewego13

“no one could have foreseen as a consequence of that appointment. ”

LOL. I wonder if you’re going to say the same about all these Trump appointees.

Isn’t this the exact opposite of what we’ve been arguing since November?

“I’m the boss, I can’t be held responsible for the actions of those I hired!”

Again: lol.

Justin Runia

While we’re at it, let’s ask for apologies from the 20% of the electorate that decided that they didn’t need to vote in the 2010 mid-terms. Apologies all around!

BloodyGranuaile

I missed the deadline on mailing my absentee ballot application out by less than a day, and I would submit myself to an actual Cersei Lannister walk of shame if I thought it would do any good. I will be atoning for that lapse of organization for my entire life.

Also, I will never dick around with being registered somewhere other than where I will physically be on Election Day again in my life.

I believe that people are confusing the “tradition” that requires Hillary Clinton to retire from public life with the Athenian practice of ostracism. It’s an easy mistake to make, as in both cases the person who is forced to leave the community is the one who got the most votes.

iphoneaimai

I would like to go into exile with this comment but I’ve committed to drinking hemlock with some other comments in the Trump era so I won’t be available.

Pat

It’s good to read you here again, aimai.

glasnost

I don’t completely disagree, but this is generally revisionist and misleading. Democrats and the media were, in fact pretty pissed at Al Gore, he did go quiet after he lost, and people would have complained if he’d been getting a lot of coverage in 2001. The media treated him badly in about the same way they treated HRC.

There’s no need to exclusively blame misogyny or Clinton rules: people who lose elections are people you get tired of.

Can you give any examples? My memory is that a lot of people were angry at Gore *for conceding too early and not fighting harder* in the days immediately following the election. I don’t remember anyone being angry at Gore for losing.

cleek

I don’t remember anyone being angry at Gore for losing.

because he didn’t lose. he was handed a loss.

rp0806

For a year or so, there was a LOT of anger at Gore for running away from Clinton, picking Lieberman, and his handling of the recount. But that faded quickly and I don’t remember people demanding that he shut up and go away.

Yes, exactly – this was certainly something I was angry about. But I never thought Gore should disappear after the election.

tsam

I’ll say it–I fucking HATED Al Gore’s guts because he let his scumbag holy warrior wife use his position to try to censor music. Then he wen’t and picked another fucking holy warrior to be his running mate, even getting in on the hand wringing over the sex and violence in Hollywood productions (while hustling Hollywood for campaign donations).

I fucking hate me a holy warrior–people who go around trying to alarm everyone that our children are in danger because of the content on library shelves or music or movies or video games are total garbage.

Haha, true — this brings it all back! Ugh, those were trying times to be on the left. Who could forget Mojo Nixon inveighing against her in his seminal piece Burn Down the Malls?

tsam

Gore has since redeemed himself, I think, but I have a pretty serious aversion to book burner types being anywhere near government. History proves that this is a terrible idea–it’s one of the reasons I’m a liberal in the first place.

so-in-so

But, see, he’s a white guy, so we shouldn’t question his decisions or conflate his policy with his wife’s.

BloodyGranuaile

I know a few folks that are STILL mad at Gore for losing, but they are not people with platforms beyond their own Facebooks.

Morse Code for J

2001 had other big stories that year besides the previous year’s election. A recession that began in March, a P-3 forced to land on Chinese soil after colliding with a PRC fighter over international waters, and that one story about Manhattan from September. I don’t remember much about Gore after the Supreme Court decision until An Inconvenient Truth came out, but this is not the same as Gore quietly accepting the election result and shunning media coverage of any kind.

Also, if misogyny and the Clinton Rules governed her coverage for 24 months pre-election, why would those now cease to operate?

herewego12ithink

Also, if misogyny and the Clinton Rules governed her coverage for 24 months pre-election, why would those now cease to operate?

My question is, why would we nominate said person for a popularity contest? We knew what we were in for. We voted for it anyways. How did that make sense for a glorified popularity contest?

It’s one thing if this came out of nowhere and she got swift boated. But, uh, has anyone been paying attention for the last 25 years?

Colin Day

My question is, why would we nominate said person for a popularity contest?

Because the primary voters chose her. Now why did they choose her . . .?

Morse Code for J

The DNC used up its reserves of media blackout for Bernie Sanders’ campaign when it should have held on to them for the Comey letter.

herewego12ithink

I’m asking, why is our party filled with people who would nominate someone for a popularity contest, when all available evidence says that the people voting in said popularity contest have already expressed that they do not approve of your nominee? Is it just because you personally like that person? Do you not care about winning the popularity contest?

I mean, Jill Stein can win a primary for a political party (considering she did), but does anyone here think that that means she has a great chance of winning the general election? IE, just because you can win a primary, that doesn’t mean you can win a general.

What’s funny, if it were not for trump, she probably would have fared even worse (he underperformed the fundamentals) and this argument would be moot. Instead, she went up against the single most unpopular nominee in our countries history, and STILL fucking lost, but y’all keep hanging on the fact that it was close (oh, and that she was able to get more votes that the single most unpopular nominee in history – would y’all be praising Weiner for beating Hitler in the popular vote?)

Again, none of this is her fault. The majority of people just don’t like her. Which is why our primary voters (with an assist from Obama/Comey) should accept responsibility.

cleek

The majority of people just don’t like her

which is why she won the majority of the election votes.

Just_Dropping_By

Those two things are not incompatible when you consider that (a) far less than 100% of the population votes, and (b) voters have to pick between the candidates on the ballot regardless of whether they like them.

Q.E.Dumbass

“Sure, I voted literally the world’s stupidest stoner for president, but it’s the principle of the thing…”

njorl

People who like Hillary Clinton were more likely to vote than people who don’t.

This is the list of people who would have done better than Clinton:

1-Barack Obama

“That’s it. That’s the list.”

blackbox

She won the popular vote by millions, you utter moron.

randy khan

So who would you have had them choose instead of her? Remember who was in the field; you can’t pick some hypothetical candidate.

Clinton, in my view, was the best candidate among the available choices.

John F

Given the bizarre nature of the 2016 election, using 20/20 hindsight, the closest actually running candidate to an empty suit cardboard cutout was the one most likely to win in the general- O’Malley.

Thom

I assume that is what he thinks. I think he would have been trounced.

randy khan

“Well, he wasn’t a *terrible* governor, so I guess we can vote for him.”

njorl

O’Malley was a good governor. Fans of “The Wire” have strange and nebulous misgivings about O’Malley that unfairly tarnish his image.

so-in-so

The actions of the Baltimore PD fairly or unfairly tarnish O’Malley. I’m not sure he actually had enough presence in the primary to let that matter.

ForkyMcSpoon

The Green Party nomination is not at all like the Democratic Party nomination.

If Jill Stein could win the Democratic Party nomination then YES she would have a pretty good chance of winning the general election.

Both by virtue of the two-party system making that Democratic ballot line very valuable, and by the fact that winning the Democratic nomination is a more rigorous process with more voters, more scrutiny and more political skill required to balance different constituencies. (As such, the version of Jill Stein capable of winning the Democratic nomination is almost certainly a savvier politician than the real-life Jill Stein.)

sleepyirv

Exactly. I expect candidates to be sore losers, but I do think they could keep their yaps shut for an election cycle. (The re-emergence of Al Gore, environmental advocate, happened 5 years after his election loss.) Romney believes dumb reasons cost him the election, but you would never tell because he only talked about it like every four months. You got more pictures of him pumping gas than talking to the media.

humanoid.panda

The big difference is that the reasons Clinton lost are very pertinent for the future: social media not going away any time soon, and neither does the potential to weaponize it, to cite on easy example. Now, there is a good argument to make she is not the best person to deliver this message, but who is?

sleepyirv

I believe we are more than capable of having a debate over Russian influence of the election without the help of Clinton or any of her high level campaign staff. In fact, we ARE having a debate over Russian influence of the election without Clinton.

Nothing Clinton has said shows any particular insight about her loss I don’t get from the newspapers. Frankly, the sense I’m getting Clinton gets her opinions on the race from the same places I do.

Derelict

Clinton could be doing some really great stuff. Unfortunately, every time she says anything at all about losing to Trump–no matter how anodyne her statement is–it lets Trump and the GOP get out the Wurlitzer to pump out their message that it’s all just sour grapes and fake news.

Should Hillary just shut up and go away? Hell, no. But she should avoid making any statements about Trump, Russia, or the election.

So, one of the two people at the center of a singular, precedent-shattering election — the one who lost despite winning the popular vote — should not comment upon said election when asked about it?

Your concern is noted.

Morse Code for J

What the fuck else is Clinton going to be asked when the dominant story on any given day is about some functionary of the White House or the campaign being caught in a lie about contact with Russia or being subpoenaed by the House select committee?

sibusisodan

At this stage I want to Republican incumbents to cling like barnacles to sour grapes and fake news. It is a terrible strategy for them beyond the short term. They should be encouraged in it!

N__B

I have to ask: how do barnacles cling to grapes?

sibusisodan

Note to self, proofread before covfefe

tsam

Note to you: Leave that stuff out there for N_B bait. It’s funnier this way, see?

wengler

I could care less about Clinton. I want to hear from Obama. None of this President club bullshit. The Democratic Party has no leadership right now.

humanoid.panda

Having Obama, a person who will never run for any job, ever, in the spotlight as the Democratic leader is a terrible idea. It will give us some nice feels, but in the long run, the party NEEDS the period of indeterminacy it is going through now.

humanoid.panda

Also, who was the Republican leader in early 2009?

BiloSagdiyev

Er, MIchael Steele? Wasn’t that their naked attempt at, “HEY, WE GOT A BLACK GUY, SO NO DIFFERENCE!” at the time?

so-in-so

Rush Limbaugh, given that they forced Steele to kiss his ring when he called Limbaugh “and entertainer”. The same thing Rush-bag called himself whenever he got pushback on his horrible exhalations.

malraux

Mitch McConnell?

humanoid.panda

You mean charisma machine Mitch McConnell, the messaging guru every American man envies and every American woman lusts after?

The Republicans in 2009 are absolutely NOT the model we want to follow though. Part of the reason that the GOP was a wreck that Trump could just swoop in and not even so much take over as “assume his rightful position” is because there was a leadership vacuum that nobody even tried to fill.

You had political opportunist Mitch McConnell on the one side, a drunken self-interested John Boehner on the other, and Michael “Nobody in this party is going to listen to me no matter what I say” Steele in charge of the RNC. “Leadership” basically fell to right-wing “think tank” people and Roger Ailes acting through their bought-and-paid-for loudmouths in the right-wing noise machine.

That’s bad. Real bad. If the Dems were in that kind of shape right now this country is in even uglier shape than I thought.

Fortunately that’s not the case. While we do have political opportunist Chuck Schumer on one side, he’s kind of stepped up a bit beyond the kind of “leadership” that I actually expected from him. Plus the Dems actually have folks like Warren, Gillibrand, Franken and others who aren’t clown car politicians like the GOP has. And instead of Boehner the Dems have Pelosi and instead of Steele we have Perez and Ellison.

We may not have a standard-bearer to rally around, but fortunately the Dems do at least have a number of leadership folks who can keep the boat on course while a standard-bearer is found.

(ETA: Because it isn’t clear I should point out that I’m violently agreeing with you about both Obama and the “need” for a single standard bearer right now, just pointing out that the GOP ca 2009 are a really bad thing to compare to IMO.)

humanoid.panda

Right. I was not saying that we need to emulate the GOP: I just find the idea that the party needs unity and a single leader 4 months into the other party presidency bizarre.

efgoldman

every time she says anything at all about losing to Trump–no matter how anodyne her statement is–it lets Trump and the GOP get out the Wurlitzer to pump out their message

Holy shit. If any Democrat (or any news person among the good ones) has to stifle because it will rile Velveeta Voldemort, we might as well all go live in the monasteries that operate under total silence.
Getting him ranting is a feature. not a bug.

Wapiti

“Getting him ranting is a feature. not a bug.”

Yup. I liked Clinton’s tweet yesterday about covfefe. Mock him as an idiot.

so-in-so

It is like people forget that the problem was the last two weeks of the cycle the press pretty much ignored Manhattan Mugabe. When the press focused on him, his number went down, when they focused on EMAILZ!!! and ignored him, he went up.

iphoneaimai

Oh, derelict, you are really losing the plot. Clinton already did some great stuff–what do you think the Clinton foundation does but tons of great stuff? What do you think she has been doing for women and girls around the world for decades? What do you think she is doing when she goes to speak at the Wellesley graduation and inspires a new cohort of public servants? But she is uniquely qualified to speak on the current trump, russia and election issues that are front and center and no other Democratic surrogates are doing it for her. Instead of complaining that she is talking too much about it the Democrats should be out in force banging the drum every minute about the illegitimate election and Trump/Russia. That is what the Republicans did and it hamstrung Obama from the get go. Handwaving away the need for a good offense by saying that the republicans will dismiss it as “Fake news” is the same error that Kerry made in not pushing back against the swift boaters fast and hard enough (because he didn’t have the money and had gone dark during that part of the election, btw.) If every top Democrat simply asserted as fact that Trump had the election stolen for him by the Russians and their bots Hillary wouldn’t have to be the only one asked about it and the only one taking the hits for being simply honest.

Joseph Slater

Co-sign.

Derelict

I’d rather see Hillary speaking out on the good stuff she’s doing

AND

see every other Democrat talking about the Russian interference.

cleek

i’m sticking with it:

these people are trying to get Clinton to ‘apologize’ because it will take attention away from their own culpability. the gossipy fact-free pres coverage, the year of (ostensibly-) friendly-fire, the 18 months of constant – if bemused – swooning over Trump: all those people know they contributed to Trump winning but they won’t admit it and they don’t want anyone talking about it. so, they’ve spent six months ginning-up ways to blame Clinton.

and it will never stop.

Morse Code for J

Let’s not also forget The Left accepting a Russian disinformation campaign that the DNC Stole It From Bernie and Both Candidates Are Equally Terrible. Wouldn’t want to take any responsibility for voting to fuck yourself if you can get Hillary Clinton to accept it all, would we?

Karen24

This is an exceptionally important point.

humanoid.panda

On my dark days, I blame it all on Michigan. Until that point, the Sanders-Clinton contest was surprisingly affable. But Michigan convinced the Bernie folk they are winning, and when they lost the next round, things went haywire…

herewego12ithink

This is as nutty as any other conspiracy theory we’ve heard so far (racists for obama, etc.) Congrats.

Again, let me help you: both parties selected nominees we knew were disliked by the majority of the general electorate, yet we expected to lose the “hates them both” vote (at least a fifth of total voters) by less than 2:1, but lost it by 6:1 or greater. Comey’s letter probably had an outsized effect on these voters as opposed to those who liked her and wouldn’t be predispositioned for bullshit. Ballgame.

humanoid.panda

Um, where is exactly the conspiracy theory here? The fact that pre-Michigan the campaign was rather sleepy, and post-Michigan, conspiracy theorizing and theories about superdeleagates and stolen elections became de-rigeur is a simple fact, with no hidden meaning.

ForkyMcSpoon

If you want, you can blame it on the Michigan pollsters specifically.

Bernie’s margin was quite narrow, and the blowout he simultaneously received in MS meant he fell further behind in delegates. But since the polls were SO far off, the narrative was totally different than if MI had been expected to be close.

cleek

The Left accepting a Russian disinformation campaign

but Greenwald, the most honest of all, says there’s nothing to the Russian angle !

fucking morons

humanoid.panda

Plus, you simply can’t underestimate the “cool kids on Twitter making fun of the vice-principal” dynamic.

The weirdest alt-left trolling responses I got were the ones calling me a sexist (?) for pointing this out.

Karen24

Some people believe that hashtag advocacy for single-payer makes up for their constant stream of misogyny everywhere else. Note the people now wanting to “Un-Pelosi” the Democratic Party in Ohio.

CraigMcMahon

That article had me nearly apoplectic. Nancy Pelosi is a target of bullshit right-wing misogyny and the best response is… to run away from her?

I’d like to see us circle the wagons, frankly. We don’t affectionately refer to her as Nancy Smash ironically, boys.

rm

I am kinda hoping this train wreck leaves us with President Pelosi.

humanoid.panda

Oh my, I just googled this thing.

It’s quite incredible how an idea that has a lot of merit in its own right (no reason why non-DNC/DCCC affiliated groups can’t fundraise/train candidates: the more the merrier), gets wrapped in scam-pac language, and its downright shameful that the Vox guy is basically doing dog-whistling all around the project.

humanoid.panda

And of course, the idea that only if you use some magic words the GOP will not tie you to rootless cosmpolitqns on the coasts is beyond idiotic.

“Her recent booking was about the latest jobs numbers, but Ball also has to be comfortable talking about anything from Libya to labor policy. On Friday, she got the day’s topics roughly two hours before the show, giving her time to scroll through a few articles on her pink-cased iPhone.

“You pretty much have to be prepared to talk about whatever the news is,” she said. “Running for Congress was good practice for that.”

Ball’s sole political experience is her congressional bid. She has never advised, been employed by or volunteered for any other campaign or elected official. But the more she appears on television identified as a “Democratic strategist” and political expert, the more she is known as one”

Anyone who gives her a dime should be ashamed of themselves.

BloodyGranuaile

Is her name really Krystal Ball and her job is really scam prognosticating the future of the party?!

Like… what. I can’t even. This timeline is full of every stupid B-movie cliche at once. It’s bad enough there are Russian spies and a dude named Trump who’s only able to see the world through the lens of getting one over on people and a $400 machine that squeezes juice boxes, but we’ve got a scam strategist named KRYSTAL BALL?

twbb

That’s why it’s important to never do that and start really working those refs.

End goal is people like Eric Lichtblau can’t leave their houses without people mocking them.

mongolia

correct. one of the problems of liberals and dems is we never work the media refs. we should be constantly attacking them when they say incorrect things, constantly pointing out that nearly everything on fox is a lie, etc. – if our opponents are going to constantly pump out bullshit and then complain when they get correctly called out on it, the least we could do is call out the media *when they get it wrong*

sports analogy alert – dems are like if they’re in a playoff hockey game and playing as if the refs are calling hooking and interference like in the first 10 games of the season, while republicans are slashing/hooking/holding as often as they can, knowing they wont get called because it’s the playoffs. we have to immediately start attacking the press in an accurate way, figure out where the proper line is, and use that to our advantage for ’18 and ’20 – time to get a little bloody and dirty

JMP

At least the media is getting a lot of pushback for their constant pushing of the fake email server “scandal”, leading to many of the dumbest pundits joining with the Greenwaldian misogynist fake leftists angrily screeching that the issue around 2016 that anyone should be allowed to talk about is how much Hillary sucked.

jim, some guy in iowa

not just the friendly fire but friendly *neglect*- a lot of the left/liberal election coverage was all about how horrible trump was and how he sucked all the oxygen out of the room. You could go to, say, Talking Points Memo and see 5 of 6 stories focused on trump. And then people would say ” Why doesn’t she talk about (x)? ” SPOILER: she *did*

rm

“Why won’t she give the press access?” She was talking to local press everywhere she went, in an era when any local news story can be linked and spread globally if the national outlets want to do so. “Why isn’t she forcing us to cover her campaign substantively?” I usually aim this complaint at TV news and FTFNYT, but yeah, even liberal blog/news hybrids had a lot more “can you believe this guy?!?” stories than reporting on Clinton. Even the very few sources that weren’t all about EMAILZ were a lot about the shitgibbon.

Origami Isopod

“Why isn’t she forcing us to cover her campaign substantively?”

Remember, women are responsible for men’s(*) behavior! Applies in media coverage as well as in rape culture.

(*) Yes, there are women in the media with CDS, but they are far outnumbered by their male counterparts.

cleek

5/6 is generous.

TPM was the fucking worst. and for that reason, i haven’t gone back there since the election.

Yes, people are frightened and ashamed that they let Trump steal the election, the tthey threw their votes away, that they didn’t vote, or that (in the case of the press) they stabbed Clinton while letting Trump’s actual crimes be ignored or brushed off. And the only way they can handle their fear and self loathing is to blame it on the democrats and on hillary for not preventing them from making the mistakes they made. Its straight out of an old fashioned psych textbook. Projection, denial, sublimation, shame, etc…etc…etc… If white racist america went mad when Obama was elected, the left/pogressives and the media have gone nuts because Clinton lost. People just don’t have any place to put their strong feelings of shame and fear except on the Mommy party that failed to protect them from abusive daddy party.

Rob in CT

“Look what you made me do/failed to prevent me from doing!”

I’m reminded of that bill Obama vetoed that Republicans later whined about because even though they passed it over his warnings and veto!, he apparently didn’t warn/veto hard enough.

Fuck everything.

ThresherK

Spousal ThresherK is an LCSW. “Look what you made me do” is an abuser’s cliche for a very good reason, she tells me.

I think that’s exactly correct. Embarrassingly correct, if those folks were capable of embarrassment.

ThresherK

I’m sticking with your take on this.

If she were to immolate herself, even in actuality–not metaphorically–we’d still get Tweety empaneling a coterie of experts to assess (read: criticize) Hillary’s choice of accelerant.

sibusisodan

Plus she’d be sucking up oxygen!

PatrickG

Oh, well done!

ThresherK

I love feeding a random someone a setup and witnessing them deliver the punchline.

What can I say? I’m a natural straight man.

brewmn

This seems like the real motivation for the blind determination to force an apology out of her to me as well. Who knew treating politics like a reality TV show could have adverse consequences in real life?

so-in-so

They mad they can’t vote her off the island!

UncleEbeneezer

THIS! Their hatred for HRC (and the Establishment) burned so hot that Putin could see it from his house and decided to act on it. It’s no small coincidence that the people screaming loudest about Hillary are still screaming loudest about her for running away and hiding when we need her, doing an interview, speaking out loud on a topic she knows better than anyone else, refusing to hang her head and do a public Walk of Atonement down the streets of King’s Landing, while being pelted with shit existing.

rickstersherpa

Part of this is deflection of the huge responsibility American political media, in particular the NY Times, has for the catastrophic outcome of the 2016 election. It’s not our fault, it’s HER FAULT! Also, trashing Hillary is now a 25 year tradition.

gyrfalcon

Also, if the Republican candidate had been literally anyone else the deflection could have been in the direction of why the current President* actually won on the merits and is up for the job. Rather difficult to do with Twitler.

herewego12ithink

It really is ridiculous that people continue to blame Clinton for her loss. She didn’t vote against herself and that not-vote didn’t cost her 3 midwestern states as far as I can tell.

There are only two people to blame for this mess: the Average Democratic Primary Voter and The President Who Selected Comey and Pushed That Worthless Trade Deal No One Wanted (and forced his SoS to give an ill timed speech about it…)

It was clear to everyone with two eyes that Clinton wasn’t popular with the general electorate, at least if you looked at the dozen or so polls that occurred over the months leading up to the first primary vote to be cast. But again, she didn’t select herself, she didn’t make herself unpopular on purpose or through missteps, and you can’t blame her for running.

What’s funny (except not funny at all) is that a year ago D’s were saying that we were going to be able to laugh at R’s for the next 8 years because they went and nominated the least popular candidate ever – I mean, how stupid could you be! Are they trying to lose? This is a popularity contest! Morans!

The position we find ourselves in is really, truly unbelievable. But none of it is Clinton’s fault. There is nothing she could have done differently to win this thing. Trump was her best shot, and not enough people in the midwest liked her enough to even allow her to beat him, especially after Comey’s stunt.

Karen24

And it’s important to note that she was always more popular that Trump.

herewego12ithink

You mean less unpopular. Neither was “popular” for at least a dozen consecutive polls before primary voting began.

Unfortunately, the part of the electorate that decided the election (if you assume that both candidates locked up the voters who liked them) was the fifth that “hated them both” and we assumed that we would lose them no more than 2:1 (cause she had more that liked her to start with than he did, as you point out, so she could lose them 2:1 and still win), but she lost them something like 6:1 or 7:1. When you play with fire, sometimes it doesn’t do what you expect it to.

randy khan

I think “more popular” is perfectly accurate. You may not like it, but it’s still right.

Just_Dropping_By

“Less unpopular” would seem to be the more accurate framing.

Murietta

Here is my beef. Applying this bullshit measure of “what all the other nominees did” is pretending like there is some kind of objective frame for presidential nominees that we just now apply to Clinton and see if she’s doing it right. Leaving aside the fact that even that frame is nonsensical because none of the assertions about her predecessors’ fading into the good night are true, this also deliberately obscures the fact that of course she is not like other nominees in a key way that this phony frame seeks to deny.

Yes, Hillary triggers people. Yes, it’s the media treatment (which has a bit of Gore to it), the social media phenomenon on the left (still in play — my FB feed still has some nightmare people who make me think twice about posting anything about HRC, which sucks), and the 25-year hate campaign against her — but all of those things are functions of her gender. Many people want to deny that because they didn’t mean for it to be true, but too bad, it is. HRC is the only woman ever to be nominated for president; she is the central figure in the biggest ratfucking in the history of US elections, orchestrated by a foreign power in collusion with her opponent. In what world does it serve the public interest for her to just let all of that go and not speak of her experiences and what she learned from them?

By the same token, if HRC shuts up and goes away in shame, then that act is itself a reenforcement of a misogynistic narrative about the proper role of women — whether those demanding it think that is what they are doing or not. She is not a neutral actor to be measured against some kind of objective measure of “presidential nominees” as though that were not itself, until her, a gendered category. As the only woman nominee to this point what she does has meaning for women, and it also has meaning for non-women, in the sense that she is in a position to respond to the beliefs of the culture about women and women about themselves. Her perception of what happened is therefore important, as is our own constant confrontation with what the way we treated her means. As a woman and an American, I want her out there talking about it, and calling everyone on it, for as long as she is willing. People do not get to just go forward feeling like there is nothing to see here.

Moreover, I dread and detest the fact that once certain key people come online today this thread is likely to descend into the same pile-on of a bunch of dudes weighing in on “did sexism matter or didn’t it”, just as the last thread on this subject did. This blog does better than most online forums in terms of having women who comment, but even here the dynamic is striking. And depressing.

herewego12ithink

You’re worried about what people say about what you say on Facebook?

Post, then tell them to go fuck themselves. You can also delete people. See?

Origami Isopod

You can also delete people. See?

This is hilarious advice from someone who keeps getting banned and keeps coming back under various socks.

humanoid.panda

Odds that Progressiveliberal engaged in some light stalking in the past: more than zero.

herewego12ithink

You’re a douche.

Just because I think our party is the majority dumb and feel like venting about it doesn’t tell you shit about me.

iphoneaimai

It tells us a lot about you, actually.

cleek

tells me he really likes pie.

Murc

Just because I think our party is the majority dumb and feel like venting about it doesn’t tell you shit about me.

This isn’t why you keep getting banned, and this isn’t a place for you to vent.

You had numerous, extended chances to engage productively. You squandered them.

herewego12ithink

Some of y’all need a does of reality.

Our party really is the majority dumb. We nominated someone for a popularity contest who wasn’t popular with the deciders. This is the definition of stupid.

Instead we get all these weird conspiracy theories (Bernie did it in michigan! Racists for obama in erie!) instead of accounting for how dumb our decision was.

Banning people who disagree with you seems like an intelligent idea. Works for republicans.

Murc

Banning people who disagree with you seems like an intelligent idea. Works for republicans.

This isn’t why you’ve been banned.

Scott Lemieux

Herewewankagain created no fewer than 11 new registrations! Fortunately, it’s almost as easy to delete 11 as 1, but I’m sure he’s proud of the time investment.

humanoid.panda

But the fact you get thrown out of here, and then come back, and then get thrown out again, and then come back again, does tell us something about you.

herewego12ithink

Yet he persisted.

humanoid.panda

Isn’t there a woman only screening of Wonder Woman you should be picketing?

In being a giant dick. Persistence in the pursuit of villainy is no virtue.

JMP

What about the fact that keep getting kicked out of a place and told never to come back, but continually cheat to sneak back in? What does that tell us about you?

herewego12ithink

Loomis blocking my comments from showing up when he is signed in is the equivalent of removing me from his Facebook feed. What he does is try to remove me from Facebook altogether, so no one can see my comments, because he doesn’t agree with me.

Get the difference? Other forums allow this option. Hell, it may be an option here – can you block specific commenters? Allowing me to keep one name would also make it easier for those who want to block my comments.

I don’t feel like I should be put out in the wilderness because I enrage him.

iphoneaimai

Analogy fail in aisle 9!

jim, some guy in iowa

christ, for someone who fancies himself a tough-minded realist this is just fucking pathetic. Go out and make some new D primary voters and outvote us instead of standing with your nose pressed against the window making whining noises

Murc

What he does is try to remove me from Facebook altogether, so no one can see my comments, because he doesn’t agree with me.

This isn’t why you keep getting banned. Two, if it were, it would still not be an outrage, because in this context Loomis owns the “facebook” in question.

This is Loomis’ house. He has the right to toss you out of it on your ass any time he wants.

If Erik were trying to throw you out of the internet as a whole, you’d have a complaint. But he isn’t, so far as I know.

You are not entitled to others platforms. You are only entitled to your own.

Hell, it may be an option here – can you block specific commenters?

It isn’t and you can’t, and the management isn’t obligated to accommodate you.

Thom

Right, my analogy would be that it is not only the house of Erik (and his co-owners), but that this is a discussion group in that house, with some agreed upon standards of fair engagement with the owners and fellow visitors. The owners absolutely have a right to eject you for violating those standards, and in many cases fellow visitors ask them to do so.

humanoid.panda

The funny thing is that the essence of his commments is…correct. Hillary really was an exceptionally weak candidate in the end, and there are lessons about the process to be learned from her fall. But seriously: if you come to someone’s house, take of your pants, and take a dump on the living room table, while engaged in witty conversation, people will be more focused on the “taking a shit on the table” bit than on your witty repartees.

Murc

Right?

I mean, taking the stance of “people were dumb to nominate Hillary” isn’t by itself an idiotic stance to take. This is my stance! It is a stance I took and defended during the primary, during the election, and continue to do so now.

And hey, guess who has two thumbs and has never even close to being banned? This guy!

Rob in CT

I think “people were dumb to nominate Hillary” is far too strong.

I think “pay more attention to favorable/unfavorable #s next time, particularly if your part is running for a difficult-to-achieve 3rd term” is perfectly defensible position (another way of saying “it sucks but far too many people hated her, and even if they hated her for bullshit/awful reasons, in the end what matters is winning/losing, so…). And if PL stuck to that argument and avoided the other shit he pulls, that would’ve been fine. He wasn’t banned for a long, long time. The reality is that moderation here is very forgiving, so getting banned requires being a huge asshole.

so-in-so

On one had the GOP selected a total racist clown of a candidate (which we now know is a feature to 40% of the electorate who are racist clowns themselves, and happy to have someone just like them in power. The other 6% just see (R) and pull the lever regardless). On the other hand is an experienced candidate who beat the fundamentals (which favored the R candidate generically) and ran a excellent campaign despite ratfucking and foreign interference, and missed by around 100,000 votes across three states.

Clearly, we should of gone with the “social democrat” who was only even IN the party for the campaign season, who’s campaign screwed up the early primary states badly and pretty much told minority voters their concerns were not really important, and who had positions without any actual plans for how they could be implemented?

Nepos

I disagree, I think Hillary was an extremely strong candidate, one of the strongest we’ve had since… well, since Obama, but before that, her husband. Moreover, Trump was possibly the weakest, most unqualified presidential candidate the United States has ever seen.

The problem was 1) that the American media and a big chunk of the American people didn’t care about who was more qualified, and 2) we have an outdated electoral system that gave undue weight to the votes of racists and morons.

NonyNony

When you come into someone else’s house, attack their guests and crap on their carpet you shouldn’t be surprised when you get booted out the door.

Stop being a horse’s ass, engage with people with less hostility and namecalling, and stop being an all-around troll and maybe you won’t get shoved out into the street.

This is a privately owned website, not a public forum where you have some kind of “right” to act like a horse’s ass and the owners have to put up with it. If you act like an abusive jerk you’re going to be treated like an abusive jerk and you shouldn’t be the least bit surprised about it when it happens.

Chetsky

Honey chile, this ain’t Facebook. Grow up.

rm

Yeah, I’m gonna delete half my family. It’s complicated, and you’re a creepy jerk who has been shown the door, by your estimation, about 12 times.

Origami Isopod

Excellent observations, especially the last paragraph.

jim, some guy in iowa

“People do not get to just go forward feeling like there is nothing to see here”

Oh, I wish we could plate this comment in gold. This is the most true thing I’ve read in ages. In the last few months something like 11,000 women have attended seminars on running for office. If we allow this “If you lose you should commit seppuku, preferably by soaking yourself in gasoline and lighting a match but please don’t scream in pain because that makes us dudes unhappy” to catch on, then we lose most of those women who really are the future of the Democratic Party. What man would put up with being told he needs to disappear, after enduring months of being told he was ugly and stupid and men don’t belong in politics? Hell, just last week a bunch of MRA assholes lost it because they weren’t allowed into half a dozen screenings of a movie they have spent the last three years denouncing. Women will be expected to be perfect in five or six completely irreconcilable areas and trashed for failing in any of them, but will be held responsible for any losses because Reasons. Got it, guys, thanks for having our backs.

Murietta

Thank you! I think this is so, so important, and it’s something that maybe we don’t say enough to the men around us, or even to each other — that women who enter the public eye, particularly at the moment HRC did, but still today, are going to have to muster incredible resources of courage. But the rest of us need to support them. I think it’s particularly difficult because the kind of public confrontation that is required to push back against these narratives themselves require kinds of courage — every day and ongoing — that are difficult. They mean being abrasive, and calling people on their shit; and those are not just things that women are taught not to do, but are things that complicate our relationships with the people around us, and compromise our ongoing efforts to win professional respect. I think people fail to understand the degree to which women are faced all the time with a bunch of shitty trade-offs, and this is one of them. I admire all those women who look at this situation and decide to run for something. That is the kind of guts we need.

Karen24

Exactly.

iphoneaimai

Thank you so much for this comment, Murietta. You should comment more here! I have wanted to say this–and have said it–so many times. HRC has meaning for me! She has meaning for my daughters! She has world historic meaning for American women who have seen less movement in the upper reaches of power than India, Israel, the UK, Germany, and almost every other country other than the ones in which women are banned from politics. She was a uniquely qualified and talented public servant and the press and the white male democratic voters (as well as republican women) treated her like shit And these continued arguments over what she “should” and “shouldn’t” do are so incredibly condescending–like the same ones directed at Obama and Michelle. Like women and black people are not entitled to have a life, choose how they speak or to whom they speak or how they spend their own money unless it serves to benefit other people or follows the schema set for them by other people. Fuck that shit.

so-in-so

Yes. It makes me nuts that Pakistan had a woman leader years ago (admittedly, they later assassinated her and are unlikely to pick one in the foreseeable future, but still). Pakistan! I bet many of the people would have a major snit if someone said that we should only nominate black males since Obama won pretty handily, yet have no trouble saying (in a round-about fashion) that we should really stick to generic white guys from now. Like none of them ever lost…

Murietta

America is such a peculiar place. Something about the way the presidency was constructed as a separate office, rather than connected to the parliament as in other countries, put it in this out-of-reach zone that allowed us to confirm our refusal to grant public space to women. There is also the fact of American misogyny, which is of a special sort in my experience, having lived abroad for a while. The fact that Hillary herself was persecuted during the campaign was not a surprise, but the way her supporters were made to feel real shame if they were pro-Hillary was something I did not expect. Many of my friends went into a kind of crouching silence during the spring and summer as the Bernie thing went nuts, and there was a real nervousness about — what the hell is going on?? I think that whole moment reflected this kind of unexamined form of misogyny that even I, who expect the worst, was not prepared for. I am still reckoning with its implications for my relationships. But I am with you, Aimai (and I appreciate your kind words, as you are a most extraordinary commenter, and brave as hell) — HRC is an important world historical figure, and a figure to personally respect. There is zero reason to back down on that point.

rm

Yeah, we imagine the president is Boss of Everything, so for people who can’t abide a lady boss . . . .

Karen24

You have made another brilliant comment. We Hillary supporters were subjected to the same kind of shaming as kids who like uncool music in high school. Even one of the front-pagers here compared Bernie to “good Indian food” while Hillary was “chain restaurant pizza.” Thanks guys — the first woman to win the nomination for President from a major political party is meh junk food, while the old white guy is excellent.

humanoid.panda

Karen: I ask this respectfully, and not in a trolling way, because its an issue I struggle with. So, I see the point about how Sanders is just another white guy, while HRC is the first woman nominee ever. But, viewed from another angle, Sanders is the first truly leftist politician to break through to the central stage of American politics in our lifetimes, maybe forever, while Hillary, for all her accomplishments, is ideologically smack dub in the center of the Democratic party. How would you expect people excited about a socialist candidate react to this disparity?

Karen24

Good question, and respectfully posed.

For a woman to exist at high levels of anything is, by itself, threatening to males. That woman will have had to navigate far more dangerous waters to arrive than any equivalent male. She has to be simultaneously beautiful but not so much so that her success can be attributed to her looks and she has to make it appear that she doesn’t spend any time on grooming; she has to appear assertive and commanding but at the same time nice and accommodating; she can’t shout but she can’t be quiet either; she has to have no sexual past at all but even if she doesn’t actually have one, the world will attribute one to her, (see all the discussions on the RW that Clinton was in fact a lesbian, that Chelsea wasn’t Bill’s kid, and that she was was responsible for Bill having affairs.)and because her existence is a threat she can’t really have an opinions outside the mainstream. So, there is no possible way that a woman with Bernie’s opinions and grooming habits, mannerisms, and most especially having had a kid with someone she didn’t marry would ever exist in politics much above the school board in some hippy town in coastal Oregon. That’s the problem — a female Bernie is simply impossible.

Rob in CT

That’s the problem — a female Bernie is simply impossible.

I know this point has been made before. I know I’ve read it. I’m not sure how deeply it’s sunk in. But yeah.

But that Hillary, she's so controlled an inauthentic, you know? So calculating, so unlikeable.

[Hillary drops the mask and acts normally]

OUTRAGEOUS! How can she expect to connect with Real America if she doesn’t bake cookies?!

Dilan Esper

There’s a difference between “there can’t be a female Sanders” and “no better female candidate than Hillary can get through”, and 1 is not proof of 2.

Rob in CT

Who is arguing that no better female candidate than Hillary can get through?

Joseph Slater

Excellent post, Karen24.

rm

I think a “centrist” female president running on a more liberal platform than any previous Dem, who has spent decades advocating for gender equity and women’s and girls’ rights, and seems more likely to handle the job competently, is a far more radical choice in favor of justice than an eccentric “socialist” with major blind spots in some areas of civil rights and progressivism. I’d tell people excited about the social democrat that their own goals will advance farther with Clinton, even assuming both of them could win.

umopepisdn

How about “Bernie’s good Indian food, and Clinton is good Chinese.”?

Like, it isn’t inevitable or necessary that Clinton had to be derided in order to build Sanders up. Going back to the primary, both Clinton and Sanders made that fairly clear w.r.t one another while on the campaign trail (Clinton may have assembled all the back-office support with a four-year insider campaign within the DNC, but quite frankly, I always thought that was a huge point in her favour that she was willing to put in years of work like that)

Karen24

That would have been so much better. “Clinton is familiar, but we’re happy that someone else is highlighting these other issues” would have been great. Far less great was “Bernie is the cool teacher who lets us do book reports on comics and Clinton is the nasty math teacher who makes us turn in hard homework.”

Murc

Thanks guys — the first woman to win the nomination for President from a major political party is meh junk food, while the old white guy is excellent.

This is only inappropriate if the analogy isn’t accurate.

brewmn

If you think that is a fair, or even reasonably accurate, analogy, you’re an idiot. Many of us felt (and still feel) Bernie would have been a complete and total disaster as president. And I like my vindaloo extra spicy.

nixnutz

It’s more like Panda Express vs. an Amy’s Vegetable Korma, but without a microwave to cook it in.

Murc

If you think that is a fair, or even reasonably accurate, analogy, you’re an idiot. Many of us felt (and still feel)

By this rubric, any analogy is accurate as long as it accurately reflects the personal feelings of the person making it.

Redwood Rhiadra

Indeed. If Bernie and Corbyn are the best “truly leftist politicians” on offer, then fuck socialism, it obviously isn’t ready to govern.

Karen24

But it wasn’t accurate. For some of us, Clinton really was an exciting candidate, because we had never seen anyone like us running for office. Please note that her best demographic was black women, especially middle-aged ones. I would slap any leftist who suggested that African Americans shouldn’t be thrilled about Obama for no reason other than that he was black and got elected. Why are women expected to be self-effacing and mute our excitement that one of our own had a good chance to be President?

so-in-so

Plus she had the knowledge and temperament to be excellent at the job (unlike a Palin, picked pretty much to say – “look, a woman! now all you wimens gotta vote for us”).

Even if you preferred Sanders, if you spent the general telling people how hard you were holding your nose while voting for HRC, YOU OWN SOME OF DRUMPF!

Murietta

Seconding both Karen and so-in-so. Well said.

Murc

But it wasn’t accurate. For some of us, Clinton really was an exciting candidate, because we had never seen anyone like us running for office.

And that’s entirely fair, but for some of us she wasn’t exciting at all, and I’m not sure that’s unfair either.

I would slap any leftist who suggested that African Americans shouldn’t be thrilled about Obama for no reason other than that he was black and got elected.

I’m hesitant about this kind of standard. I mean… David Clarke is an African-American and gets elected and re-elected to a position that has frequently been at the forefront of enforcing white supremacy. He’s helped break an important color barrier in that regard… but is that by itself sufficient reason for black people to be thrilled about him, given the fact that he’s a petty, vindictive fascist?

Why are women expected to be self-effacing and mute our excitement that one of our own had a good chance to be President?

They should, of course, not be expected to do this in any way. They are, and for very ugly reasons, but they shouldn’t be expected to.

tsam

I’m hesitant about this kind of standard. I mean… David Clarke is an African-American and gets elected and re-elected to a position that has frequently been at the forefront of enforcing white supremacy. He’s helped break an important color barrier in that regard… but is that by itself sufficient reason for black people to be thrilled about him, given the fact that he’s a petty, vindictive fascist?

That’s not fair. There’s a clear difference between Barack Obama and Clarke. Clarke is just a total mess of a human, and Obama is a top tier level human. There were good reasons for black people to be excited about Obama. You could make the same comparison with Sarah Palin vs. Hillary Clinton, and that certainly doesn’t hold up. In other words, there’s still a level of **something** that needs to be there in order for the marginalized group to get behind them. Hillary Clinton exceeded that standard by a few hundred miles, in my opinion.

Karen24

Thanks Murc. All good points.

Hogan

LARRY KING: You must be … proud that at this stage in our history a black man is running for president on a major ticket.

CHRIS ROCK: Um, you know what? I’m proud Barack Obama’s running for president. You know? If it was Flavor Flav, would I be proud? No. I don’t support Barack Obama because he’s black.

Q.E.Dumbass

Chris Rock also said in 2008 that electing a black counterpart to Dubya would mark the end of racism as a driving force in America.

Also: Obiglatory note that Trump’s “I like people who weren’t captured” was a blatant ripoff of Chris Rock’s same joke in Kill the Messenger.

Murc

There were good reasons for black people to be excited about Obama.

There were and are, of course, tsam, but Karen specifically was referening a hypothetical black person who was only (“for no reason other”) thrilled about Obama because he was black and got elected.

Thanks Murc. All good points.

In fairness to you, I’m less than sure about a few of them. Like… hrm.

Is it wrong that I think the line of “people have the right to be as excited as they want about anyone they like” and “but we’re still allowed to criticize or judge them for that choice” is a really, really hard one to follow, if it should be followed at all? Especially once you toss the witches brew of late-stage capitalism, misogyny, white supremacy, etc. we all marinate in daily?

so-in-so

Yeah, Murc, I don’t think black people need to be proud of Clark, nor women of Palin (or Stein). I also don’t think Obama or Hillary Clinton are comparable in any important way to either of them. That doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with being excited that a competent black man or a women has finally got a chance to break through the ceiling that keeps them out of the position. I get leftists were excited by Sanders. Somebody was going to be disappointed. Sanders failed to get a majority of the primary votes, and Clinton was by no means a terrible candidate nor likely to be a bad President.

TopsyJane

Adding to this that some of us liked her because she wasn’t that exciting. To me HRC represented women who couldn’t win over a room with a big grin but earned their place by dint of study and working harder than the guys to get where they were. That in itself was pretty cool. She was a win for the swots.

brewmn

Hillary wasn’t exciting to me, and on some level I empathize with all the arguments about her being uninspiring. But, while I like excitement, spice and variety in my food, it is meaningless in my politics.

Hillary was the less exciting candidate and also much more likely to be a really good, effective president. Comparing her and Bernie to the cuisines of the world is just silly.

so-in-so

Which matter clearly remains in question. Simply assuming it is accurate means you think it is a decided issue (it probably can’t be, since one side is hypothetical).

Hogan

Even one of the front-pagers here compared Bernie to “good Indian food” while Hillary was “chain restaurant pizza.”

The woman carries Sriracha sauce around in her purse.

Thom

Also, there have been several female presidents in Africa, and the last head of the African Union was a woman.

farin

And there’s Dilma Rousseff, before she was forced out over trumped-up corruption accusations and replaced by a comically evil old white dude…

N__B

As others have said, good observations. Your third paragraph says something I’ve had kicking around in my head but have been unable to express properly, so thank you.

tsam

It was a great comment. I’d only add that Hillary Clinton’s campaign has made me sadly aware that some people I respected at the time are just plain old sexist jackasses.

Murietta

This. A lot of people who I would have thought had a grip on their own reasoning began relaying clearly misogynistic memes of the sneaky, untrustworthy woman, and did so with an astonishing degree of conviction and intolerance. Real friendships of mine were destroyed over this.

Murc

Yes, Hillary triggers people.

Small quibble: anyone else not like how diluted that word is becoming?

Because I don’t think Hillary actually triggers people. There are certainly people who are super high on CDS, but that’s not the same as triggering. I don’t know that there’s any meaningful number of people who, say, start to disassociate or suffer panic attacks or flashbacks or even enter a heightened state of anxiety when they see or hear Hillary Clinton.

Triggers are real things that hit people like sledgehammers, and I’m starting to get annoyed at the way the term is being used even by people who agree with that (which is far lower than the number of people who should agree with that) in ironic or post-ironic ways.

rm

Thank you. Sadly, I think every mental health term is bound to be misused and ruined in popular jargon. I cringe at the way “psychotic” is used.

It’s not small or a quibble. It may be a tangent from the post topic, but your point is not unimportant.

Murietta

Ok, fair enough. I withdraw trigger.

ThresherK

I don’t care for all the uses of it.

I posit that in many Clinton Derangement Syndrome sufferers it’s not that they’re triggered, but it gives them the veneer of an excuse, on the level of “Look what you went and made me do!”

(That quote is a cliche among abusers for a reason.)

(PS I’m really not referring to anyone here.)

Dilan Esper

Are you saying that people are gaslighting you on triggers? :)

Seriously, “avoid jargon” was a big deal when I was in college forensics. It’s totally forgotten on the Internet. Everything is insider jargon.

Murc

On the one hand, this is a legitimate point, but on the other hand I can see people not wanting to type out a long explanation for what they mean when there’s an actual one-word term that does it. That’s sort of what language is for.

Rob in CT

Great comment.

Fuck this accept it quietly bullshit.

Not only because of the gender angle (which is enough in itself and I can’t add meaningfully to what you’ve already said), but also because of the foreign ratfucking/GOP collusion/media complicity in it *and* um, you know, TRUMP. An know-nothing authoritarian is President. THIS IS NOT NORMAL. Why presume the normal “rules” apply?

Haven’t we been witnessing the systematic destruction of American political norms over the past, oh, 20 years? So why is this supposed norm sacred?

rm

Joining everyone in praising Murietta’s comment. It’s very hard to articulate this clearly, and you did. These conversations end up being about Clinton’s specific individual campaign tactics, and not about how America treats women in pubic life.

msdc

Moreover, I dread and detest the fact that once certain key people come online today this thread is likely to descend into the same pile-on of a bunch of dudes weighing in on “did sexism matter or didn’t it”, just as the last thread on this subject did.

Hell, that happened by 8:10 am EST.

Let me join all the other non-troll commenters in applauding and seconding your comments.

eclare

Amen.

SatanicPanic

+1

sam

Everything I want to say about this comment has been said by others so I just want to chime in with the +1000000.

I’ve been thinking about the parallels between the freakout about Wonder Woman and the all of the piling on over HRC “refusing to go away.” Certain men are basically saying: “you can’t have heroes. Not real ones. Not fictional ones.” It really is striking.

There’s no misogyny here. A 2 time loser has zero role going forward, male or female. Especially one who represents a discredited Southern triangulating centrist mode of politics that the party has moved away from.

We need ALL the Clintons (it ain’t just Hillary) to disappear. The news needs tp be about Trump and the non-Clintons who will challenge them.

It’s worth saying that a lot of people never liked what Bill Clinton did to the party. He won but he also trashed black people, increased state supported violence against people of color (both in terms of war and the death penalty), kicked blacks and poor whites off of welfare, etc.

People assuming everyone who doesn’t like Hillary is a sexist really willfully ignore this. There has ALWAYS been left wing resistance to all things Clinton in the party. For many people the only reason to support any Clinton was because they won elections.

So now that they don’t win anymore, the left turned on them and want them gone. That’s not sexist and probably explains 98 percent of what Scott and Faris are complaining about.

aturner339

Are we pretending the self appointed “left” was particularly sensitive on matters of racial injustice?

manual

Or we to pretend that Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton are?

Dilan Esper

aturner:

It depends what you mean by racial justice.

I was kind of raised in the old left. My parents were both socialists. They supported every left wing third party candidate Scott hates. Campus free speech, a huge issue for the left in the 1960’s, was an absolute for them. Big supporters of the ACLU.

And those sorts of leftists hated welfare reform. Peter Edelman, as old civil rights left as they come, resigned from the Clinton Administration over it.

There are a whole lot of older left wingers who were / are strong civil rights supporters but think some of what now gets labeled as civil rights (suppression of free speech, etc.), has little to do with the cause. And those people were a part of Sanders’ base.

aturner339

Oh there were once socialists who understood that there is no viable left wing movement in this country without the support of racial minorities. But as you’ve tacitly admitted these are not the people who opposed Clintonism. I’d just prefer, as a black person, not to be used as a human shield in the argument by people who don’t care about the community.

It’s worth saying that a lot of people never liked what Bill Clinton did to the party…

Well, no shit – I was one of those people. And during HRC’s 2016 campaign, Bill was the source of several cringeworthy gaffes. And exactly none of that has any bearing on how HRC should spend her time now. Period.

If she’s an ally, willing, able and ready to work (SPOILER ALERT: she is), then she should use her powers for the benefit of liberal/left policymakers.

brewmn

The notion that Clinton trashed the party is pretty hilarious. When Clinton won, it was really looking like the Republicans had a lock on the presidency for the medium-to-long term. Clinton was successful because he appealed to a portion of the electorate that had not been supporting Democrats for a long time.

You don’t have to endorse everything he did as president to understand this. And, at a certain point, you have to start blaming the people support those policies and vote accordingly, rather heaping all of the blame on the politicians trying to win elections.

humanoid.panda

Between 1968 and 1992, Democrats won 1 out of 6 presidential elections. And the lone victory came after the greatest scandal in American politicaal history. And was amazingly narrow. And 4 of the 5 Republican victories were landslides. Those figures are so flabbergasting we just pretend they never existed when we debate the Clintons.

ExpatJK

People assuming everyone who doesn’t like Hillary is a sexist really willfully ignore this.

No Dilan, this is not what people are assuming. I did not like all of Hillary’s positions. I don’t know her personally, so I can’t really say if I like her or not. I also don’t think all people who voted against her in say, the primary, were necessarily sexist. However, some of them soon showed themselves to be sexist through words/actions.

There has ALWAYS been left wing resistance to all things Clinton in the party.

OK sure. But some people will find left wing resistance less than palatable if it comes with other things, eg racism, sexism, etc. Just saying “well there’s left wing resistance” is not an excuse.

aturner339

“There’s no misogyny here.”

I think the problem you are having is that absent misogyny your position makes even less sense. I wouldn’t call it a generous assumption of motive but it’s the one that does the least damage to personal credibility.

rea

“There’s no misogyny here.”

He says, while conflating Bill Clinton’s policies from 20 years ago (grossly inaccurately) with HRC’s present day policies.

After all, there’s no misogyny in treating husband and wife as one person (the husband).

Dilan Esper

rea, Hillary and Bill ALWAYS presented themselves as a package deal, and Hillary NEVER said “I won’t govern as my husband did”. She even had many of the same people working for her.

Even Josh Marshall, a big Hillary supporter, said it was fair to look at Bill’s record in deciding what you thought of Hillary as a candidate.

sam

Hey, this OTHER MAN said it was TOTES OK that I treat a woman this way (not that I’ve bothered to provide any evidence!), so it’s totally not misogynist!

veleda_k

Hillary NEVER said “I won’t govern as my husband did”

Hillary Clinton never denied being a thousand year old vampire who feeds on the blood of the innocent, so I feel safe assuming she is.

IS

Cool story Dilan.

aturner339

So here’s the problem with trying to nail down motive. You are never going to get Dilan to admit that his entirely fictitious tradition of losing presidential nominees “disappearing” was motivated by gender bias. No matter how many tells you point to there will always be a another reason. The paucity of his case in general is however proof enough that if it isn’t gender bias then at the very least it’s something that makes even less sense.

Which is impressive in its own right.

so-in-so

Like it is pretty hard to find “actual racists”, although there a few who will admit (or even say proudly) that’s what they are. Most really can’t see themselves in that role. Probably fewer with misogyny.

sibusisodan

“We need ALL the Clintons (it ain’t just Hillary) to disappear.”

Scenario: in the rush of packing for a Christmas vacation – shoehorning themselves into others’ interviews, moving all those secretly murdered bodies from the ice house – THE CLINTONS leave one person behind by accident.

Having been banished to the attic for saying mean and silly things previously, LOST BOY – a cute and charming west coast lawyer – groggily makes his way through the house, his befuddlement slowly turning to joy as he realises his wish is granted:

“I made the Clintons disappear!”

FlipYrWhig

The candidate still super committed to reaching out to Bubbas happens to be one Bernard Sanders. Cue BUT HE MEANS IN IT A LEFT WAY bleating in 3, 2…

Strictly speaking, it is no such thing. However, the article cited does, in fact, say he did “disappear” – for a while, anyway.

So I suppose the moral here is that it’s OK to do a post-mortem on your election loss seven years after the fact, but not a few months after? On what grounds? On what basis?

“A 2 time loser has zero role going forward, male or female.”

Again, on what grounds do you make this claim? It is not in line with “tradition”, that is for certain. “Two time loser” Al Gore began to criticize the Bush administration after a couple of years. Needless to say, two-time loser John McCain has continued to play a role, as did other losers before him, including George McGovern. Bob Dole had already run unsuccessfully twice for the Republican nomination when he won in 1996, lost in the general and afterwards became a media commentator and spokesperson.

It is true that there is no tradition of a defeated Presidential candidate becoming the “leader of the opposition” as happens in other countries, but I don’t see that as germane to the issue being discussed here, especially since there is no evidence that Clinton is angling for that role.

It is also simply wrong to imply that Clinton opening her mouth to talk about the election or criticize Trump prevents others from speaking. That is not how political discourse actually works in a democracy. If Hillary Clinton is getting inordinate attention at this time, it is due to people freaking out at her speaking publicly about things. Stop freaking out and she will eclipse absolutely no one at all.

Dilan Esper

She sucks up oxygen because she is a bigger celebrity than any of the party’s future leaders.

umopepisdn

That seems to be a problem for the “future leaders” to solve on their own merits.

sibusisodan

Yeah. Dilan was big on the idea that celebrity was important for future candidates (which has some merit).

Complaining that Clinton is more celebritious than alternatives is…inconsistent.

cleek

there is no oxygen.

it’s a myth.

sure, it’s a handy myth for those who want other people to shut up and go away. but it’s still a myth.

Nope, she gets inordinate attention because of people like you freaking out every time she opens her mouth. And – must I keep repeating this point- her public statements since the election have been few and low-key. She has not, in any way, been purporting to lead the Democratic party or the resistance to the current administration. So the “sucking up energy” theory of politics, if it has any validity here, certainly does not here. Her occasional forays into the public eye have not prevented anyone else from doing their bit.

What’s more, your theory about oxygen-sucking celebrity damaging the prospects of younger potential future leaders, if valid, would seem to apply far more to people like Bernie Sanders (age 75), Elizabeth Warren (age 67), or Al Franken (age 66). Are these the “future leaders of the party”? Should they just go away? Is their prominence crowding out the leaders of tomorrow? Should Chuck Schumer (age 66) step aside for someone younger?

All these people have been far more prominent than Hillary Clinton since the election.

So the “sucking up energy” theory of politics, if it has any validity here, certainly does not here.

should read

So the “sucking up energy” theory of politics, if it has any validity, certainly does not apply here.

veleda_k

There’s no misogyny here.

Thank you so much for explaining this, Dilan. There are a lot of silly, hysterical women who think otherwise, but now that a man of inherently superior intellect has explained that there’s no misogyny, they will accept the wisdom of their natural better. Thank god for men!

(Seriously, Dilan, this is pathetic. What kind of loser froths this much over Chelsea Clinton’s twitter account?)

Joseph Slater

You can’t seriously argue that the Hillary Clinton of the 2016 campaign and beyond “represents a discredited Southern triangulating centrist mode of politics.” Did you read the platform she ran on? Did you hear what she said on reproductive rights? And etc.? Attributing to Hillary all the worst — or at least outdated — positions of her husband from 25 years ago isn’t a great look for someone arguing “it isn’t sexism.”

JMP

“There’s no misogyny here”

Hahahaha. Oh my, the denial of reality is insane here. This especially coming from someone who continually insists that Chelsea Clinton needs to shut up, even though the only public statement she’s made since the election was to deny false rumors she’s planning to run for office, is particularly insane.

veleda_k

But Chelsea Clinton has a twitter account! This elevates her voice far above ordinary citizens, who also have twitter accounts, but in an indefinably different way.

The only ones putting Chelsea Clinton in the public eye are the people who won’t stop whining that she’s in the public eye.

John F

“no previous loser has won the popular vote by two points”

Ahem
in 1824 Andrew Jackson won the popular vote over John Quincy Adams by 10

in 1876 Samuel Tilden won the popular vote by 3%

I’m not gonna debate Tilden v. Hayes, but in 1824 the better man did in fact end up POTUS 1825-1828. Of course 1824’s popular vote winner/election loser, later went on to win….

CNN chyron right now: “Excuses Tour: Why Is Clinton Making Public Rounds?/Clinton Blames More People For Loss.” Some blond woman is questioning Ben Jealous.

Fuck motherfucking CNN, and Bullet-Headed Troll Jeff Zucker deserves to be the first person into the woodchipper.

so-in-so

Headfirst or feet?

Q.E.Dumbass

Feet first, of course. And as slowly as possible.

jroth95

+10 for “wilderness wastrel”

It’s probably been said above, but the press was pretty brutal on Gore in the election aftermath, but that’s hardly surprising since what they did to him during the election is the only real parallel we have for what they did to Clinton. It’ll be interesting to see if they ever relent on HRC (although it should be noted that they never a. admitted what they did in ’00, nor b. acknowledge that, yes, a fair recount would have given him Florida).

tsam

So we have a situation where a new standard of behavior is fabricated for one candidate, then a hilariously dumb attempt to retroactively apply it to past candidates.

We had an election cycle where the candidate was the primary target of right wing hate since before my adult daughters were born (!!), then developed a similar hate from the left, was treated with everything from gross malfeasance to outright hate by the media, was sabotaged by a crooked FBI director, another nation, and internal factionalism, and yet manages to win the popular vote by a substantial margin, yet still lose the election.

This particular candidate hasn’t been shy about owning up to past mistakes, and has actually demonstrated a level of introspection that you don’t normally see from politicians.

This candidate saw the left actually promoting Tea Party, RNC and Reich Wing Radio talking points. She was also at times accused of being as bad as one Donald J Trump, who was revealed to be loathsome piece of
shit decades before he ran for president.

There hasn’t been the slightest bit of reckoning or critical thought out of the left that maligned her and depressed turnout and enthusiasm and actually encouraged people to write in the loser of the primary.

The fact that there is a single, glaring difference between this candidate and all previous candidates–the fact that she’s a woman. Not just any woman who appeared out of nowhere, but one who’s been a stalwart in Democratic politics since forever and done the work to earn our support and done the work to be eminently qualified for the office.

Those fuckers can make all the excuses they want, but she’s a woman and they fucking hate that. The defensiveness and fabricating new standards of behavior are a serious tell.

Murietta

Seconded in every single particular. This is why there is no point in sitting around arguing with the Dilan Espers of the world, because his argument is always going to slide around in pursuit of blame for HRC, and it will always find a place to land. It will find a mistake or limitation of hers because so many people savaged her for so long, and so piled up a huge list of complaints, and then fabricated a bunch more. They also pushed her into defensive positions that were themselves conditioned by her gender and the reaction to it. Looking at these things in isolation is therefore ridiculous; they always have a context. And few people seem willing to acknowledge that the sense of HRC’s weaknesses is itself a creation of that process of destruction, which itself took place because she is a woman. Will this happen to every woman who tries to do what she did? The slander of HRC began when she was a much more radically novel kind of woman than she is today — when she did not fit the role of first lady in the ways she was “supposed to” — but the response to Michelle Obama indicates that those forces and values are still out there, and not to be ignored.

He adds an important point: “Right now, as far as I can see, HRC is the only one completely free to hammer away at the extraordinary events that conspired to put Donald Trump in the White House.”

Yup.

Rob in CT

Cited in that Pierce post:

(Predictably, Chris Cillizza of CNN has chipped in with the most resolutely boneheaded analysis of all. In spectacular fashion, Cillizza cites the Russian ratfcking and James Comey’s bungled meddling not as the unprecedented events that they were, but as examples of the ordinary bumps inherent to every campaign. Gaze in awe at this vein of hopeless nonsense: “But that is the reality of all political campaigns. Stuff happens. Good luck and bad breaks occur. Circumstances totally out of a candidate’s control often decide—or heavily influence—how voters make up their minds. Here’s one example: Clinton’s private email server had absolutely nothing to do with the email hack via WikiLeaks. But the two issues—both of which dealt with email—got conflated as one issue in the minds of lots and lots of voters. And there was nothing Clinton could do about it.” Gee, I wonder how that could have happened.)

I am Jack’s white-hot rage. The gall of that motherfucker. Talk about someone who should don a hairshirt and go the fuck away.

ExpatJK

I also present this gem from Cillizza, in the same article:

While Clinton says she takes full responsibility for her defeat, everything else she says about the election belies that rhetoric. What taking the full blame and responsibility actually means is saying this: There were lots and lots of circumstances outside my control that hurt my chances. But at the end of the day, it was my campaign and my name on the ballot. And that means I lost and I own that.
Clinton isn’t saying that. Probably because she simply doesn’t believe it.

Jeezus. He forgot to add “SUCK THAT, SHILLERY! GO MAKE ME A SAMMICH!” Fuck that asshole.

Good on you mate, for stomaching the click-through to his perch at CNN.

ExpatJK

Why thank you. I’ll be drinking later on tonight to reward myself, and also to soothe my brain after the vile sludge I exposed it to.

so-in-so

That is really good (not that I’ve seen Pierce be anything but).

WinningerR

What’s particularly entertaining is that an awful lot of the people on the left claiming that Clinton is 100% responsible for her loss are the same people who insist that Sanders lost only because he was the victim of a shadowy conspiracy between the Clinton campaign and the DNC.

sam

but, you see, as the CLINTONS are the source of ALL evil and conspiracies in the world, this makes absolutely perfect sense.

[/sarcasm font – my buttons are missing]

DamnYankees

I’m a little late to the show here, but I want to make a point that some others have made here and try to hammer it a little, even if it might be tilting at windmills.

What’s interesting about the response to the election is that, as far as I can tell, Hillary didn’t run a bad campaign. In fact, she actually sort of ran a great campaign. And this was what people were saying at the time. The convention was great, and everyone said so. She destroyed Trump during the debates, and this wasn’t even a topic of dispute – the most credit Trump got in those debates was an occassional acknowledgment he managed to literally survive 90 minutes.

Her campaign was free of drama. It raised a lot of money. It had professionals running it. It is, quite frankly, hard to imagine how she could have run it much better. The two things that seemed to have killed her were both things which happened before the campaign – the paid speeches and the emails thing.

And then she lost. And our political culture is incapable of addressing why she lost in anything but personal terms. There are various explanations, but no one in the media really likes talking about them:

* Maybe campaigns don’t matter very much, especially in Presidential election. I think this is likely true, but if we admitted this we’d be admitting we’re all massively wasting our time.

* Maybe Trump wasn’t actually as bad a candidate as we assume. In which case this country’s voting base is an abomination unworthy of self governance. The fiction that *only* Hillary could have lost to Trump, which is something you see spouted everywhere, it the comforting lie which says “we aren’t really this bad, Hillary made us this bad.” It’s pathetic.

The ultimate frustration I have here is the laziness and unfalsifiability of this posture. The idea that “you lost, therefore you were fatally flawed” is just…so lazy. It doesn’t illuminate. It doesn’t explain. It doesn’t explain *what happened*. And what sucks here is that my best friend – a liberal who voted for Hillary in the primary and the general – believes this. I say this not to malign my best friend, just to use him as an example of a decently policially aware guy who cares, and how conventional wisdom seeps in. He thinks the idea that Hillary ran anything but a disastrous campaign is hilarious – she lost to Trump! Of course she was a disaster!

We’re all screwed.

Chetsky

The fiction that *only* Hillary could have lost to Trump, which is something you see spouted everywhere, it the comforting lie which says “we aren’t really this bad, Hillary made us this bad.”

QFT.

humanoid.panda

But here’s the thing: Hillary did run a good campaign, but she finished the race with the worse favorability numbers of any candidate in history, short one. So, clearly, there was something unique to her in what happened- even if that something is not her fault.
As Rob says above: it might not be fair, but it was clear she was unpopular with the general electorate, as early as late 2015.

Rob in CT

Yes. Trump really was a bad candidate overall, though I think it’s clear that he had a specific appeal to a particular demographic that was amplified by the EC (and that bit is important). He “said what they were thinking” and “they” were particularly numerous in particular states that ended up flipping.

I think Clinton was an ok candidate – neither great nor terrible – who ran a good campaign (which didn’t seem to matter, whether because campaigns don’t matter or because much of the media just had to fuck that Emailz chicken). I think she lost (the EC and thus the election) because of the confluence of many factors, some of which include decisions she made prior to the campaign but most of which were outside of her control.

DamnYankees

This is true, but it just drives me crazy that people conflate stuff like this with the campaign. Every losing candidate loses for some reason. That doesn’t mean every losing candidate had a bad campaign.

so-in-so

Yes, and in a FPTP system one candidate WILL lose. It doesn’t follow that the losing candidate was terrible because one WILL lose. Trump is a clown, but we now know that isn’t the same as being weak (at least, not with the MSM, the FBI director and a foreign intelligence service on your side).

What hasn’t been (and can’t be) proven is that non-Hillary would have done better. HRC was in the 60% approval as SoS. Was she higher than Obama at that point? Obama became really popular – when he wasn’t running any more.

humanoid.panda

Right, but 2012 Obama, post-the-2008 romantic phase, post-recession, post-shellacking, post-four years of freak out, was still personally popular. He was personally popular even during his presidential approval hit bottom in 2014/5. Hell, even Romney ended being having mildly ok favorability numbers. In the end, HRC really was the exception here.

WinningerR

The interesting question, of course, is how did she go from a high favorability rating (higher than Obama’s!) to that near-record unfavorability over the course of just over a year? That’s a true measure of the effectiveness of the right wing slander machine.

Roberta

He thinks the idea that Hillary ran anything but a disastrous campaign is hilarious – she lost to Trump! Of course she was a disaster!

This logic is so typical of a kind of liberal/moderate who doesn’t want to admit that, in the eyes of many, Trump is a good candidate. Trump is overtly racist. Trump is overtly misogynist. Trump lies brazenly and shows no sign of repentance for it. Trump is a bully. Trump is a fantasy of having all the power and no responsibility. And his supporters like it. As someone said above, Hillary’s campaign’s real weakness was the reliance on the (reasonable, though inadequate in hindsight) “Trump is toxic” strategy. Turns out a huge chunk of voters like toxic.

(brought to you by someone who has just checked out the Daily Howler to see if Bob Somerby is still beating the DON’T YOU DARE CALL THEM RACIST, YOU ELITIST drum and…yep, he is.)

Q.E.Dumbass

The immortal Mencken quote is relevant here.

Unlike AMK, I don’t exactly wish for the Rust Belters to fall into a crater, but I do half-hope that any funding for improvements in the region be accompanied by a “Makin’ It Rain Act” where prominent and semi-prominent rappers go neighborhood to neighborhood gloating about their wealth to Trump voters faces (or at the very least, that said gloating is periodically broadcast every week).

humanoid.panda

“This logic is so typical of a kind of liberal/moderate who doesn’t want to admit that, in the eyes of many, Trump is a good candidate. Trump is overtly racist. Trump is overtly misogynist. Trump lies brazenly and shows no sign of repentance for it. Trump is a bully. Trump is a fantasy of having all the power and no responsibility. And his supporters like it. As someone said above, Hillary’s campaign’s real weakness was the reliance on the (reasonable, though inadequate in hindsight) “Trump is toxic” strategy. Turns out a huge chunk of voters like toxic.”

In the eyes of many, yes. But not so that he didn’t become the most unpopular major party nominee ever!

postpartisandepression

I totally agree. In fact I would counter she only lost because of the Mercers and whatever gang he is operating with targeted very cleverly the tiny number of voters that they needed to win the electoral college. If that is even partially true – dems will never win another presidency until they wake up.

Sadly this sounds like a crack pot conspiracy theory.

No Longer Middle Aged Man

Dear Scott
This series of articles has turned into the LGM version of click bait. People have already made up their minds whether Hillary Clinton should be condemned for all eternity, is the victim of historically unfair treatment and should be absolved of all sins, or something in between. At this point these posts and the events and articles that stimulate them do nothing more than provide ammunition for the circular firing squad.

Daglock

The repeated exhumation and autopsy of the corpse of the 2016 prez election is beginning to smell of necrophilia. The commentariat would do well to read Murietta’s first post on the thread, which has a sub-text of being more forward-looking, thus avoiding the trap of the circular firing squad, and focus on unseating the corrupt, destructive, and know-nothing government of the GOP Cheeto-in-Chief and his congressional lackeys.

Rob in CT

I guess the only argument that makes sense to me here is that CDS is so powerful and so entrenched that HRC should go be a hermit, because anything else just lets lazy assholes in the media keep fuckin’ that chicken they love so, so much.

so-in-so

The argument that makes sense to me (since the winner actually had worse popularity than the EC loser) is that too many people wanted “change” and Clinton ran too much on “continuation”. that made a lot of sense, since resident Obama was increasingly popular at that point AND his policies were growing more popular as well. Yet a lot of people said “Trump’s a racist clown, but at least he’s a change…”, some explicitly! Maybe Sanders could have got them, maybe Clinton running more strongly on “I’ll keep the good stuff AND CHANGE THINGS FOR THE BETTER where I can. Give me a Dem congress in 2018 and just watch!” would have done it. That makes more sense to me than “people who hated the ACA really want MORE socialism” as a majority position.

CDS clearly had an effect, but I’d like to think it could be overcome – it ALMOST was. Plus, there are stories about the Right already working to re-create it against Warren and other prominent Democrats. I think it is pretty well in place against Nancy Pelosi – see some ostensible leftist hate for her right here on LGM!

postpartisandepression

The dems have done a terrible job of counteracting the republicans and their machine. Obama was a complete failure for the democratic party as a whole. Not all of the huge losses in 2010 were simply a backlash against a black president. It was also because Obama did very little to help keep a democratic congress. Whether that was because of plain stupidity or that he didn’t want to “waste” his charisma I have no idea. The president is the de facto leader of the DNC and he and everyone around him frittered away the power that his Change message was supposed to embody. I never saw those Obama voters from the 2008 primary ever again. Not in primaries or as activists. A few have woken up again just now.

The BEST thing for Hillary to do for democrats is to work to build the party apparatus.

1) With Money (until Citizens is repealed which requires winning the presidency to change the Supreme Court I am taking advantage)

2) by getting a TV station that would rival Fox on the left – one that would drum beat every day about the failures of Trump and the republican party – not like MSM which try to achieve some kind of balance ( that always seems to result in more republicans getting a voice even when democrats hold the chambers and the presidency) and they wouldn’t even have to lie – there is plenty of real truth that is being lost out there

3) by counteracting the micro-targeting used by the Mercers to win those crucial electoral college states with our own Cambridge Analytica – if not we may never win again

4) by working to take back the states – even the red ones and supporting passing the NationalPopularVote the resolution that will effectively eliminate the Electoral College

5) and finally fixing the messaging – how did blue collar workers become convinced that getting rid of unions was good for them? in Wisconsin? how do any of them believe that republicans want to give them any kind of healthcare? or do anything for the working man except exploit them?

Hillary is a wonk , a doer and can charm the needed people. She is one of the few that could pull this off I just hope that she is willing to take it on. You go girl!

Rob in CT

The president is the de facto leader of the DNC and he and everyone around him frittered away the power that his Change message was supposed to embody. I never saw those Obama voters from the 2008 primary ever again. Not in primaries or as activists. A few have woken up again just now.

I really don’t think this is primarily about Obama.

2008 was a massive wave election in response to the GOP thoroughly, comprehensively shitting the bed. Lots of people “woke up” for that election, but then went back to sleep. Maybe Obama could’ve kept them awake if he had done this or that thing, but I kind of doubt it. Where were those people when we were staring down Donald Fucking Trump last year?

I honestly don’t know what to do about complacency amongst voters who lean D, but it’s a long-running issue.

postpartisandepression

I agree about the driving force behind the 2008 election and firmly believe that after 8 disaterouse Bush years anybody coudl have won.

However I’m a democrat who lives in Texas and saw first hand the massive mobilization of the Obama supporters by that campaign. This was because at the time Texas dems had what ia called the 2 step primary – most votes were awarded by the vote in the primary election but some were awarded if you also showed up to the caucus at 7 pm after the polls closed. Hillary won the primary vote pretty handily but lost the caucus. Obama used that caucus mobilization effort in many states and is the reason he eeked out a win. The caucus overall that year was MUCH bigger than usual even for the Hillary voters but was overwhelmingly controlled by the Obama team. If you can mobilize that amazingly and then you throw it away you are clearly an idiot.

I am seeing some of those coming back because they cannot believe tRump could win and I only hope this bodes well for 2018. I certainly want to learn those mobilization skills.

I’ve read a number of post-election interviews from losing presidential nominees. Nearly each and every one of them blames external factors – sometimes convincingly, other times fairly dubiously. Mitt blamed Sandy. Kerry blamed the Bin Laden pre-election video and Ohio shenanigans. Gore blamed the Supreme Court.

Virtually the only former nominee who’s like “Yeah, that was on me, sorry – I fucked up” is Dukakis.